North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed his country will “invariably support” Russia’s war in Ukraine as he met Russia's defense chief, the North’s state media reported Saturday. A Russia military delegation led by Defense Minister Andrei Belousov arrived in North Korea on Friday, amid growing international concern about the two countries’ expanding cooperation after North Korea sent thousands of troops to Russia last month. The official Korean Central News Agency said that Kim and Belousov reached “a satisfactory consensus” on boosting strategic partnership and defending each country’s sovereignty, security interests and international justice in the face of the rapidly-changing international security environments in a Friday meeting. Kim said that North Korea “will invariably support the policy of the Russian Federation to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity from the imperialists’ moves for hegemony,” KCNA said. North Korea has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a defensive response to what both Moscow and Pyongyang call NATO’s “reckless” eastward advance and U.S.-led moves to stamp out Russia’s position as a powerful state. Kim slammed a U.S. decision earlier in November to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles as a direct intervention in the conflict. He called recent Russian strikes on Ukraine “a timely and effective measure" demonstrate Russia's resolve, KCNA said. According to U.S., Ukrainian and South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia and some of them have already begun engaging in combat on the frontlines. U.S., South Korean and others say North Korea has also shipped artillery systems, missiles and other conventional weapons to replenish Russia’s exhausted weapons inventory. Both North Korea and Russia haven’t formally confirmed the North Korean troops’ movements, and have steadfastly denied reports of weapons shipments. South Korea, the U.S. and their partners are concerned that Russia could give North Korea advanced weapons technology in return, including help to build more powerful nuclear missiles. Last week, South Korean national security adviser Shin Wonsik told a local SBS TV program that that Seoul assessed that Russia has provided air defense missile systems to North Korea. He said Russia also appeared to have given economic assistance to North Korea and various military technologies, including those needed for the North’s efforts to build a reliable space-based surveillance system. North Korean leader calls for expanding his nuclear forces in the face of alleged US threats Belousov also met North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol on Friday. During a dinner banquet later the same day, Belousov said the the two countries' strategic partnership was crucial to defend their sovereignty from aggression and the arbitrary actions of imperialists, KCNA said. In June, Kim and Putin signed a treaty requiring both countries to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked. It's considered the two countries’ biggest defense deal since the end of the Cold War.  

Russia is engaged in a massive missile and drone attack against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure Thursday, officials said, as fears mount about Moscow’s intentions to devastate the country's power generation capacity before winter. “Attacks on energy facilities are happening all over Ukraine,” Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said in a post on Facebook. He added that emergency power outages are being implemented nationwide. Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Lutsk, and many other cities in central and western Ukraine. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said in a Telegram post that Russia had stockpiled missiles to strike Ukrainian infrastructure and wage war against civilians during the cold season. “They were helped by their crazy allies, including from North Korea,” he wrote. Over 280,000 households in the northwestern Rivne region are currently without electricity because of the attack, said the regional head, Oleksandr Koval. There are also interruptions to water supplies in affected areas. Some schools in Rivne city have been instructed to study remotely Thursday. There were also strikes on the bordering Volyn region, where 215,000 households have no electricity, said the head of administration, Ivan Rudnytskyi. All critical infrastructure that lost power has been switched to generators. Russia to use new missile again in 'combat conditions': Putin Local officials ordered opening the “points of invincibility” — shelter-type places where people can charge their phones and other devices and get refreshments during blackouts. In Kyiv, where the air raid alert lasted over nine hours, missile debris fell in one of the city’s neighborhoods, local officials said. No casualties were reported.  

South Korea’s president on Wednesday met a visiting Ukraine delegation and called for a joint response to the threat posed by North Korea’s recent dispatch of more than 10,000 soldiers to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. The North Korean troop deployment is threatening to expand the almost three-year war, with Ukraine and the U.S. saying that some of the soldiers have already begun engaging in battle on the front lines. Seoul and Washington also worry that Russia might in return help North Korea build more advanced nuclear weapons targeting them. In late October, South Korea warned it could respond by supplying weapons to Ukraine. During a meeting with the Ukrainian delegation led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, President Yoon Suk Yeol said he hopes that Seoul and Kiev will work out effective ways to cope with the security threat posed by the North Korean-Russian military cooperation including the North’s troop dispatch, Yoon’s office said in a statement. The Ukrainian delegation later met separately with Yoon’s national security adviser, Shin Wonsik, and Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun. During the meetings, Umerov briefed the South Korean officials on the status of the Russia-Ukraine war and expressed hope that Kyiv and Seoul will strengthen cooperation, the statement said. It said the two sides agreed to continue to share information on the North Korean troops in Russia and North Korean-Russian weapons and technology transfers while closely coordinating with the United States. The South Korean statement didn’t say whether the two sides discussed Seoul’s possible weapons supply to Ukraine. Many observers say Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election could make South Korea more cautious about potentially shipping weapons to Ukraine because Trump has promised to end the war swiftly. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah start a ceasefire after nearly 14 months of fighting Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, South Korea has joined U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow and shipped humanitarian and financial support to Kyiv. But it has avoided directly supplying arms in line with its policy of not supplying lethal weapons to countries actively engaged in conflicts. South Korean officials have said they will take phased countermeasures, linking the level of their response to the degree of Russia-North Korean cooperation. Shin, the national security adviser, said last week that Russia has supplied air defense missile systems to North Korea in exchange for its sending troops to Russia. Experts say it’s unlikely that Russia will transfer high-tech nuclear and missile technology to North Korea in the initial stage of the troop dispatch. North Korea and Russia have sharply increased their military and other cooperation as each face confrontations with the U.S. and its allies. The U.S., South Korea and others accuse North Korea of having shipped artillery, missiles and other conventional weapons to Russia.  

Russian authorities on Tuesday ordered a British diplomat to leave the country on allegations of spying as tensions soar over the conflict in Ukraine. Russia's Federal Security Service, the top domestic security and counterintelligence agency, said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that the diplomat, identified as Edward Pryor Wilkes, had provided false personal data while seeking permission to enter the country. The agency, known under its Russian acronym FSB, alleged that he has worked for British intelligence under diplomatic cover, replacing one of the six British diplomats who were expelled from Russia in August. The FSB alleged that Wilkes was involved in “intelligence and subversive activities that threatened the security of the Russian Federation.” Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that a decision has made to revoke Wilkes' accreditation and he has been ordered to leave the country within two weeks. She said that the ministry has summoned the British ambassador to hand over the notice. The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had no immediate comment.Russia announced the expulsion of six British diplomats in September weeks after it happened. Moscow accused them of spying, allegations rejected by the U.K. as “completely baseless.” Russia and NATO allies have carried out multiple rounds of mutual expulsions of diplomats as relations have sunk to the lowest levels since the Cold War after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.Read: The week that upped the stakes of the Ukraine war  

Ukraine's parliament canceled a session on Friday as security was tightened after Russia deployed a new ballistic missile that threatens to escalate the nearly three-year war. NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks next Tuesday, the alliance said, following a request from Ukraine. The meeting will be held at the level of ambassadors and will most likely address the new missile threat. Russian troops also struck Sumy with Shahed drones overnight, killing two people and injuring 12 more, the regional administration said Friday morning. The attack targeted a residential district of the city. Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the Russians used Shaheds stuffed with shrapnel elements for the first time in the region. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne. Separately, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský arrived on a visit to Kyiv. He posted a photo from Kyiv’s railway station on his X account Friday morning. “I am interested in how the Ukrainians are coping with the bombings, how Czech projects are working on the ground and how to better target international aid in the coming months. I will discuss all of this here,” Lipavský wrote. Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled due to the ongoing threat of Russian missile attacks targeting government buildings in the city center. Not only is the parliament closed, “there was also recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and NGOs that remain in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said. Russia on Thursday fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv's use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address on Thursday. It struck a missile factory in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Putin warned that U.S. air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree. Russia attacks Ukraine with a new missile that the West can't stop: Putin Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate also released details. It said the missile was fired from the 4th Missile Test Range “Kapustin Yar” in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six warheads each carrying six submunitions. The peak speed the missile reached was 11 Machs. Test launches of a similar missile were conducted at the range in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed that Russia's missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.  

The Kremlin fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine on Thursday in response to Kyiv's use this week of American and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russia, President Vladimir Putin said. In a televised address to the country, the Russian president warned that U.S. air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at ten times the speed of sound and which he called the Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree. He also said it could be used to attack any Ukrainian ally whose missiles are used to attack Russia. “We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” Putin said in his first comments since President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the green light this month to use U.S. ATACMS missiles to strike at limited targets inside Russia. Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate range missile based on it’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile. “This was new type of lethal capability that was deployed on the battlefield, so that was certainly of concern," Singh said, noting that the missile could carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. The U.S. was notified ahead of the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels, she said. The attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro came in response to Kyiv's use of longer-range U.S. and British missiles in strikes Tuesday and Wednesday on southern Russia, Putin said. Those strikes caused a fire at an ammunition depot in Russia's Bryansk region and killed and wounded some security services personnel in the Kursk region, he said. “In the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and in kind,” the Russian president said, adding that Western leaders who are hatching plans to use their forces against Moscow should “seriously think about this.” Putin said the Oreshnik fired Thursday struck a well-known missile factory in Dnipro. He also said Russia would issue advance warnings if it launches more strikes with the Oreshnik against Ukraine to allow civilians to evacuate to safety — something Moscow hasn’t done before previous aerial attacks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov initially said Russia hadn’t warned the U.S. about the coming launch of the new missile, noting that it wasn't obligated to do so. But he later changed tack and said Moscow did issue a warning 30 minutes before the launch. Putin's announcement came hours after Ukraine claimed that Russia had used an intercontinental ballistic missile in the Dnipro attack, which wounded two people and damaged an industrial facility and rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, according to local officials. But American officials said an initial U.S. assessment indicated the strike was carried out with an intermediate-range ballistic missile. Read: Russia fires intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine as first use Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that the use of the missile was an "obvious and serious escalation in the scale and brutality of this war, a cynical violation of the UN Charter.” He also said there had been “no strong global reaction” to the use of the missile, which he said could threaten other countries. “Putin is very sensitive to this. He is testing you, dear partners,” Zelenskyy wrote. “If there is no tough response to Russia’s actions, it means they see that such actions are possible.” The attack comes during a week of escalating tensions, as the U.S. eased restrictions on Ukraine's use of American-made longer-range missiles inside Russia and Putin lowered the threshold for launching nuclear weapons. The Ukrainian air force said in a statement that the Dnipro attack was launched from Russia’s Astrakhan region, on the Caspian Sea. “Today, our crazy neighbor once again showed what he really is,” Zelenskyy said hours before Putin's address. “And how afraid he is.” Russia was sending a message by attacking Ukraine with an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of releasing multiple warheads at extremely high speeds, even if they are less accurate than cruise missiles or short-range ballistic missiles, said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “Why might you use it therefore?” Savill said. "Signaling — signaling to the Ukrainians. We’ve got stuff that outrages you. But really signaling to the West ‘We’re happy to enter into a competition around intermediate range ballistic missiles. P.S.: These could be nuclear tipped. Do you really want to take that risk?’” Military experts say that modern ICBMs and IRBMs are extremely difficult to intercept, although Ukraine has previously claimed to have stopped some other weapons that Russia described as “unstoppable,” including the air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missile. David Albright, of the Washington-based think tank the Institute for Science and International Security, said he was “skeptical” of Putin’s claim, adding that Russian technology sometimes “falls short.” He suggested Putin was “taunting the West to try to shoot it down ... like a braggart boasting, taunting his enemy.” Earlier this week, the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to use the U.S.-supplied, longer-range missiles to strike deeper inside Russia — a move that drew an angry response from Moscow. Days later, Ukraine fired several of the missiles into Russia, according to the Kremlin. The same day, Putin signed a new doctrine that allows for a potential nuclear response even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power. Read more: US will allow Ukraine to use antipersonnel land mines against Russian forces The doctrine is formulated broadly to avoid a firm commitment to use nuclear weapons. In response, Western countries, including the U.S., said Russia has used irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behavior throughout the war to intimidate Ukraine and other nations. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Russia’s formal lowering of the threshold for nuclear weapons use did not prompt any changes in U.S. doctrine. She pushed back on concerns that the decision to allow Ukraine to use Western missiles to strike deeper inside Russia might escalate the war. ″They’re the ones who are escalating this,” she said of the Kremlin — in part because of a flood of North Korean troops sent to the region. More than 1,000 days into war, Russia has the upper hand, with its larger army advancing in Donetsk and Ukrainian civilians suffering from relentless drone and missile strikes. Analysts and observers say the loosening of restrictions on Ukraine's use of Western missiles is unlikely to change the the course of the war, but it puts the Russian army in a more vulnerable position and could complicate the logistics that are crucial in warfare. Putin has also warned that the move would mean that Russia and NATO are at war. “It is an important move and it pulls against, undermines the narrative that Putin had been trying to establish that it was fine for Russia to rain down Iranian drones and North Korean missiles on Ukraine but a reckless escalation for Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons at legitimate targets in Russia,” said Peter Ricketts, a former U.K. national security adviser who now sits in the House of Lords.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that the Biden administration will allow Ukraine to use American-supplied antipersonnel land mines to help fight off Russian forces. Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, he said the shift in policy follows changing tactics by the Russians. Austin said Russian ground troops are leading the movement on the battlefield, rather than forces more protected in armored carriers, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians.” “The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it, you know, far more, safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own,” Austin said.  

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said it would stay closed Wednesday after receiving a warning of a potentially significant Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital. The precautionary step came after Russian officials promised a response to President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets on Russian soil with U.S.-made missiles — a move that angered the Kremlin. The war, which reached its 1,000-day milestone on Tuesday, has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development which U.S. officials said prompted Biden’s policy shift. Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced Tuesday permitting a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power. That could potentially include Ukrainian attacks backed by the U.S. Western leaders dismissed the Russian move as an attempt to deter Ukraine’s allies from providing further support to Kyiv, but the escalating tension weighed on stock markets after Ukraine used American-made ATACMS longer-range missiles for the first time to strike a target inside Russia. The U.S. Embassy said its closure and attack warning were issued in the context of ongoing Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and anticipated a quick return to regular operations. Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia been stockpiling powerful long-range missiles, possibly in an upcoming effort to crush the Ukrainian power grid as winter settles in. Military analysts say the U.S. decision on the range over which American-made missiles can be used isn't expected to be a game-changer in the war, but it could help weaken the Russian war effort, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. “Ukrainian long-range strikes against military objects within Russia’s rear are crucial for degrading Russian military capabilities throughout the theater," it said. Ukraine has seen success in building clean energy, which is harder for Russia to destroy Meanwhile, North Korea recently supplied additional artillery systems to Russia, according to South Korea. It said that North Korean soldiers were assigned to Russia’s marine and airborne forces units and some of them have already begun fighting alongside the Russians on the front lines. Ukraine struck a factory in Russia’s Belgorod region that makes cargo drones for the armed forces in an overnight attack, according to Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counterdisinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council. He also claimed Ukraine hit an arsenal in Russia’s Novgorod region, near the town of Kotovo, located about 680 kilometers (420 miles) behind the Ukrainian border. The arsenal stored artillery ammunition and various types of missiles, he said. It wasn't possible to independently verify the claims.

Russia’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday endorsed a bill banning adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender transitioning is legal. The Federation Council also approved bills that outlaw the spread of material that encourages people not to have children. The bills, which have previously been approved by the lower house, will now go to President Vladimir Putin for signing into law. They follow a series of laws that have suppressed sexual minorities and bolstered longstanding conventional values. The lower house speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, who was among the new bill's authors, has noted that “it is extremely important to eliminate possible dangers in the form of gender reassignment that adopted children may face in these countries.” The adoption ban would apply to at least 15 countries, most of them in Europe but including Australia, Argentina and Canada. Adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens was banned in 2012. Other bills approved by lawmakers on Wednesday outlaw what is described as propaganda for remaining child-free and impose fines of up to 5 million rubles (about $50,000). Its proponents contended that public arguments against having children are part of purported Western efforts to weaken Russia by encouraging population decline. Putin and other top officials in recent years have increasingly called for observing so-called traditional values as a counter to Western liberalism. As Russia’s population declines, Putin has made statements advocating large families and last year urged women to have as many as eight children. Russia last year banned gender-transition medical procedures and its Supreme Court declared the LGBTQ+ “movement” to be extremist. In 2022, Putin signed a law prohibiting the distribution of LGBTQ+ information to people of all ages, expanding a ban issued in 2013 on disseminating the material to minors.  

Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, days after U.S. President Joe Biden eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of American-made weapons in the war that has reached its 1,000-day milestone. Ukraine claimed it hit a military weapons depot in Bryansk in the middle of the night, though it didn't specify what weapons it used. The Ukrainian General Staff said that multiple explosions and detonation were heard in the targeted area. In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry said the military shot down five Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, and damaged one more. The fragments fell on the territory of an unspecified military facility, the ministry said. The falling debris sparked a fire, but didn’t inflict any damage or casualties, it said. Neither side's claims could be independently verified. The announcement came after Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons after Russia deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the conflict. Russian President Putin signs a new doctrine that lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported a third Russian strike in three days on a civilian residential area in Ukraine killed at least 12 people, including a child. The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region late Monday hit a dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv and wounded 11 others, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble. Ukrainian civilians have repeatedly been clobbered by Russian drones and missiles during the war, while on the battlefield it is under severe Russian pressure at places on the about 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line where its army is stretched thin against a bigger adversary. On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 84 others. On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 43. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the series of aerial strikes proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn't interested in ending the war. “Each new attack by Russia only confirms Putin’s true intentions. He wants the war to continue. Talks about peace are not interesting to him. We must force Russia to a just peace by force,” Zelenskyy said.