Ukraine-Russia warfare reside: North Korean military helps ‘just cause’ of Putin’s warfare, Kim Jong Un says | EUROtoday

Putin and North Korean chief Kim Jong Un signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” pact in Pyongyang on 19 June 2024, together with a mutual defence clause in case of aggression towards both nation.

Kim expressed “unconditional support” for “all of Russia’s policies”, together with “a full support and firm alliance” for Russia’s warfare in Ukraine. Putin has mentioned Russia would assist North Korea construct satellites.

The US and South Korea say North Korea has shipped ballistic missiles, anti-tank rockets and thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition for Russia to make use of within the warfare. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied weapons transfers.

Ukraine, South Korea and the US say Kim has despatched greater than 11,000 troops to combat for Russia in its western Kursk area, a part of which has been held by Ukraine since August. Ukraine says many North Korean troopers have been killed and wounded. Moscow has by no means confirmed or denied their presence.

Ukraine’s $1.3 billion drone warfare is now being led by a rap artist who has been combating on the entrance line – and in his music – because the begin of the warfare, Sam Kiley reviews

An underwater Russian Baltic Sea telecoms cable was broken by an “external impact”, Russia’s TASS information company cited the nation’s state-owned Rostelecom firm as saying on Saturday.

“Rostelecom’s submarine cable was damaged in the Baltic Sea as a result of an external impact some time ago,” TASS cited Rostelecom as saying.

Restoration work is underneath means and the incident has had no affect on subscribers thus far, Rostelecom added.

Rostelecom didn’t present additional particulars and it was unclear when the injury occurred. Finland’s coast guard mentioned earlier on Saturday on platform X that it was monitoring a Russian vessel repairing a damaged Russian cable within the Gulf of Finland.

The Baltic Sea area has been on excessive alert after a string of outages affecting energy cables, telecom hyperlinks and gasoline pipelines between the Baltics and Sweden or Finland, resulting in elevated surveillance operations by Nato members.

All had been believed to have been attributable to ships dragging anchors alongside the seabed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has denied any involvement.

Ukrainian music band Ziferblat has secured their place in 2025 Eurovision after successful the choice contest with the music “Birds of Prey”.

The band will symbolize the war-torn nation with their music “Bird of Pray” on the 13-17 May competitors in Basel, Switzerland.

Russia, nevertheless, stays banned from the world’s largest music contest organised by the European Broadcasting Union.

The three Baltic states disconnected their electrical energy methods from Russia’s energy grid on Saturday, the area’s operators mentioned, a part of a plan designed to combine the international locations extra carefully with the European Union and increase safety.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from the IPS/UPS joint community and, topic to last-minute checks, they are going to synchronise with the EU’s grid at 1200 GMT on Sunday after working on their very own within the meantime.

“We’ve reached the goal we for strived for, for so long. We are now in control,” Lithuanian Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas instructed a press convention.

Plans for the Baltics to decouple from the grid of their former Soviet imperial overlord, debated for many years, gained momentum following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The grid was the ultimate remaining hyperlink to Russia for the three international locations, which reemerged as unbiased nations within the early Nineteen Nineties on the fall of the Soviet Union, and joined the European Union and Nato in 2004.

Russia has but to see any optimistic steps from the brand new US administration on disarmament, Russia’s everlasting consultant to the United Nations in Geneva mentioned in an interview printed on Sunday.

“We are ready to maintain smooth relations of cooperation with any American administration,” Gennady Gatilov mentioned, based on RIA Novosti. “We would be ready to do this within the framework of the Conference on Disarmament,” he was quoted as saying. “So far, we do not see any positive progress in this regard in Geneva.”

The convention, a world disarmament discussion board that meets within the Swiss metropolis, has negotiated plenty of main multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements, together with on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated after final month’s inauguration of Donald Trump as US president that he sees Mr Trump’s second time period as an opportunity for a brand new period in US-Russian relations.

“We are, of course, closely monitoring the rhetoric and first steps of the representatives of the new US administration,” Mr Gatilov mentioned. “We expect that the Americans will move from words to action, especially since they have said a lot since January 20.”

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which caps the variety of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to ship them, is because of expire on February 5, 2026.

It is the final remaining pillar of nuclear arms management between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has mentioned that the military and the folks of the nation assist “just cause” of the Russian military in warfare towards Ukraine.

“The army and people of the DPRK will invariably support and encourage the just cause of the Russian army and people to defend their sovereignty, security and territorial integrity in keeping with the spirit of the treaty on the comprehensive strategic partnership between the DPRK and Russia,” he said according to KCNA.

His comments came in response to trilateral military cooperation among the US, Japan and South Korea.

Mr Kim vowed to build the country’s “unshakable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces”.

Mr Kim acknowledged his army’s support to war a day after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed North Korean troops have returned to the Kursk region frontline.

North Korean soldiers have been “brought in again” to fight at the frontline in Kursk region after reports that foreign soldiers were withdrawn after suffering losses.

“There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas … the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Friday.

He said a “significant number” of opponent troops “have been eliminated”, adding that “we’re talking hundreds of Russian and North Korean servicemen”.

It come as Ukraine and South Korean intelligence said North Korean troops appear to have withdrawn from fighting after mounting losses.

Ukraine believes that the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to Russian war crimes will continue despite US president Donald Trump imposing sanctions on the organisation, Kyiv’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

Mr Trump authorised economic and travel sanctions targeting people involved in ICC investigations of US citizens or US allies, such as Israel.

The ICC is a permanent court that prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals.

“We are satisfied that the ICC will proceed to fulfil necessary features in Ukraine’s case, specifically bringing Russian warfare criminals to accountability,” foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said at a press briefing in Ukraine’s capital.

“We know that relations between the US and the ICC have a protracted historical past,” Mr Tykhyi added.