Ukraine-Russia war live: North Korea troops arrive in Russia as PoW swap ‘unexpected’

Ukraine launched a series of drones targeting Moscow and western Russia, regional officials said on Sunday.

No injuries or significant damage was reported.

Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia’s air-defence units destroyed at least one drone flying towards the Russian capital, reported Reuters.

Some drone debris led to multiple short-lived fires in the Lipetsk region in southwestern Russia, the mayor reported on Telegram, adding that there were no injuries.

Ukraine’s accession to NATO would make a diplomatic and political resolution to the conflict impossible, Russia’s foreign ministry said according to the RIA state-owned news agency.

It would ultimately lead to an escalation in the war, the ministry said on Saturday morning.

Ukrainian president Zelensky has been pushing hard in recent months for the war-torn country’s accession to NATO to be guaranteed. He went on a whirlwind tour to present his ‘victory plan’ to allies in the West, including US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Keir Starmer, which puts NATO accession front-and-centre of any possible Ukrainian victory.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has shared a video of the moment Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) returned home to their families.

In a post on X, he said: “95 of our people are home again. These are the warriors who defended Mariupol and ‘Azovstal’, as well as the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Kherson regions.

“Each time Ukraine rescues its people from Russian captivity, we bring closer the day when freedom will be returned to all those still held in Russian captivity.

“I thank the team involved in finding and liberating prisoners. We are doing everything to bring back all of our people held by Russia. I am grateful to the warriors who replenish the exchange fund and to all our partners who help us.”

South Korea’s spy agency said on Friday that North Korea has sent 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s Far East for training and acclimatisation at local military bases, likely to be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, reported Reuters.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it had been working with Ukraine’s intelligence service and identified North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region using facial recognition artificial intelligence technology.

“The direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea that has been reported by foreign media has now been officially confirmed,” the spy agency said in a statement.

Joe Biden has urged the West to sustain its support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion as Kyiv faces a third winter of full-scale war.

Speaking to reporters before holding closed-door talks with chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin to discuss matters ranging from Ukraine to the expanding conflict in the Middle East, Mr Biden said: “As Ukraine faces a tough winter, we must, we must sustain our resolve.

“And I know the cost is heavy, but make no mistake, it bears in comparison to the cost of living in a world where aggression prevails, where large states attack and bully smaller ones simply because they can.”

He said he would discuss with Mr Scholz efforts to increase military support for Ukraine and shore up its civilian energy infrastructure “by unlocking the value of frozen Russian assets”.

Donald Trump held Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Joe Biden responsible for the Russia-Ukraine war in an interview — but made no reference to Vladimir Putin.

Two and a half years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump pinned the blame squarely on Zelensky and Biden for the conflict during an interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David, which aired Thursday.

“I think Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever seen,” Trump said, grumbling about how much aid the US has given Ukraine.

“And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help them because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start,” the former president added.

“That war’s a loser.”

Ukraine’s former armed forces chief endorses ‘victory plan’ in first speech since his dismissal

Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, on Thursday expressed his support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan,” despite the tensions between the two that led to his dismissal.

“Ukraine must clearly follow the plan,” Zaluzhnyi said in his first public appearance since his appointment as ambassador to the U.K.

He told an audience at London’s Chatham House think-tank: “But this list of steps primarily concerns those countries that should ultimately be interested in stopping the war.”

Susie Blann and Hanna Arhirova have the full report:

Paris is open to the idea of immediately inviting Ukraine to NATO but this would be subject to talks with other allies, France’s foreign minister said.

“Regarding the invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, we are open to it and it’s a discussion that we are having with our partners,” Jean-Noel Barrot told a press conference held with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha.

If proven that North Korea had sent troops to support Russia in Ukraine this would represent a major escalation, Barrot added, and would prove that Moscow was struggling in the war.