War briefing in Ukraine: Zelensky says North Korea is providing personnel for the Russian army | World News

Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday accused North Korea of ​​sending military personnel to the Russian army and again called for more support to prevent “a major war.” “We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like those in North Korea,” Zelensky said in his evening video address. “It’s no longer just about arms transfers. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying forces.” He added: “It is obvious that our relationship with our partners must continue to develop under such conditions. The front needs more support. We are talking about more long-range capabilities for Ukraine and a more sustainable supply of our armed forces, not a simple list of military equipment.” Last week, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said “there is a high probability” that North Korea could deploy troops to To support Russia in the war with Ukraine. Kim also told a parliamentary hearing that news reports of the deaths of North Korean military officers in a Ukrainian attack on territory controlled by Russian forces were likely true.

Joe Biden will visit Germany this week, government sources in Berlin said. German media said the US president would meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin on Friday for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East. Biden's visit was originally scheduled to last four days, but Hurricane Milton forced it to be postponed and prompted Zelensky to tour European capitals to lobby for their continued support.

Changes to its nuclear weapons policy announced by Russia are long overdue and will likely “cool the zeal” of its Western enemies, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview published on Sunday. Lukashenko, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, said “hotheads” in the West had already heard Moscow's nuclear signals even before the Kremlin leader announced the changes last month. Putin said last month that Russia was expanding the list of scenarios that could lead it to consider launching a nuclear weapon. He said Moscow would consider any attack on it supported by a nuclear power as a joint attack.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman has called on international organizations to respond to claims that several Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed in Russia's Kursk region where Kyiv launched an invasion in August. Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram that he had sent letters to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the lawsuit. Ukrainian battlefield analysis site DeepState, which is close to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said on Sunday that Russian troops shot and killed nine Ukrainian “drone operators and contractors” on October 10 after their surrender. Earlier this month, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office said Russian troops had killed 16 captured Ukrainian soldiers in the partially occupied Donetsk region.

Russian glide bombs have hit a “concentration” of Ukrainian troops near the border of Russia's western Kursk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday. It said the attack was directed against “a base and a concentration of personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces” and that the bombs were fired from a Russian Su-34 fighter jet. Ukraine surprised Moscow on August 6 when it crossed the border into the Kursk region, invading Russian territory for the first time since World War II. Russia has been trying to drive out Ukrainian forces for more than two months.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the village of Mykhailivka in eastern Ukraine and were advancing from there towards the key logistics center of Pokrovsk. The Ukrainian military said in its daily report that its troops repelled 36 Russian attacks in the Pokrovsk area, including near Mykhailivka.

Russia fired 68 drones and four missiles into Ukrainian territory overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Sunday. Two Iskander-M ballistic missiles hit the Poltava and Odessa regions and two Kh-59 air-guided missiles attacked the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the air force said on the messaging app Telegram. Ukraine's air defense units destroyed 31 of the drones, while 36 remained missing and were most likely intercepted by Ukraine's electronic warfare, the Air Force said. The remaining drone was still in the air, it said.

Russia's air defense units destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones over three border regions with Ukraine overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday. The ministry announced on the messaging app Telegram that six drones each were shot down over the Belgorod and Kursk regions. A drone was destroyed over the Bryansk region.