Ukraine-Russia latest: Trump ‘to call Putin’ as Biden plans final surge in military aid to Kyiv
Biden rushing to get billions more in aid to Ukraine before he exits office in January
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump is now likely to call Russia’s Vladimir Putin and tell him to “stop the war”, a former American diplomat has said.
The incoming US president is “going to make a phone call to Putin as quickly as possible and tell Putin that he needs to stop the war, that the fighting has to stop, and that there has to be peace,” Kurt Volker, former US special representative for Ukraine negotiations, said.
Mr Trump does not want to see the Ukraine war continue once he is actually in office, he said, while emphasising that Putin would inevitably have “demands” and that this would only be the start of the conversation.
Ukrainian war-time president Volodymyr Zelensky has congratulated Mr Trump, who will return to the White House, and urged the Republican to keep supporting Kyiv against Mr Putin’s invasion.
The current US administration, expecting a more frugal handling of Ukraine from Mr Trump, is now rushing military aid worth $9bn to Kyiv before Joe Biden exits office in January.
“The administration plans to push forward... to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible” before Trump enters office, a senior Biden administration official said.
A Trump presidency won’t necessarily be the gift for Putin that Moscow thinks it is...
North Korea’s troops heading to Ukraine’s frontline as cannon fodder: ‘They will surely be killed’
Why are North Koreans troops in Ukraine? Everything we know about Kim Jong-un’s soldiers joining Putin’s war
As the extreme becomes more mainstream, Trump’s best friends in Europe will be more emboldened than ever
South Korea not ruling out supplying weapons to Ukraine
South Korea is not ruling out supplying Ukraine with weapons, following North Korea’s deployment of troops to support Russia in its war, president Yoon Suk Yeol said this morning.
North Korea’s involvement in the Ukraine war presented a threat to the South, as Pyongyang gets much-needed combat experience, which its military lacks, and gets rewarded by Moscow with sensitive military technology transfers, Mr Yoon said.
Zelensky confirms first battles with North Korean soldiers
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the first battles between the Ukrainian military and North Korean troops “open a new page in instability in the world” after his defence minister said a “small engagement” had taken place.
Mr Zelensky, in his nightly video address, thanked those in the world who, he said, had reacted to the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia last month “not just with words ... but who are preparing actions to support our defence”.
“The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world,” he said.
He said that Ukraine, acting with the rest of the world, had to “do everything so that this Russian step to expand the war with real escalation fails.”
Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov confirmed in an interview with South Korean television that the first engagement had occurred with North Korean troops, an escalation in a conflict that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Nato chief warns of ‘deeply dangerous’ moment for world
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has called North Korea’s troops fighting in Europe a “turning point”, warning the world of a “deeply dangerous” moment.
“This dangerous expansion of the conflict escalates the war and demonstrates that our security is not regional, it is global,” he wrote for Politico.
“These deepening military and economic ties between a reckless Russia and an emboldened North Korea don’t just threaten Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security, they are deeply dangerous for global security,” the Nato chief said.
Calling the Russian invasion ill-judged, Mr Rutte said: “On every front, Putin is failing to achieve his strategic objectives through this illegal and ill-judged war of aggression. While we seek a just and lasting end to the conflict, he’s only prolonging and expanding it.
“President Vladimir Putin’s litany of failures since starting this senseless war has only made Russia more reliant on its authoritarian friends in Asia: China, Iran and North Korea,” he said.
Putin shortening training of North Korean troops for frontline, says Ukrainian minister
The training period before North Korean soldiers join the fight in Vladimir Putin’s invasion has been cut short, Kyiv says.
North Korean troops were expected to undergo a month’s training, Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov said, but that “is now being shortened to... two weeks or one week so that they could get engagement in the battlefield”.
North Korean personnel will finish deploying within a few weeks once they complete training in the Russian Far East, experts have said.
A total of 15,000 troops could be deployed along northeastern, eastern and southeastern parts of the 1,000km (600-mile) frontline in Ukraine, according to Mr Umerov.
Russia has declined to acknowledge that North Korean troops are operating in its territory, but Putin last week did not deny reports of their presence. He said it was up to Russia how to implement its defence pact with Pyongyang.
Biden rushes assistance to Ukraine amid fears of Trump
The White House plans to rush billions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine before president Joe Biden leaves office in January, sources said yesterday, hoping to shore up the government in Kyiv before president-elect Donald Trump’s 20 January inauguration.
The Biden administration aims to send at least $9bn in military aid to Ukraine.
“The administration plans to push forward... to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible” a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity, before its term ends in January.
Mr Trump has been critical of Biden’s assistance for Ukraine, fueling concern about the future of support for president Volodymyr Zelensky’s government under a Republican-controlled White House, Senate and possibly the House of Representatives.
Trump and South Korea’s Yoon discuss North Korean troops in Russia
South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol held a telephone call with US president-elect Donald Trump and discussed continuing close ties across all areas in security and economic fields, a senior South Korean official said today.
Both the leaders shared concerns over North Korea’s deployment of troops backing Russia in the war against Ukraine and Pyongyang’s continued military provocations including ballistic missile launches, the official told reporters.
“They shared the view they need to discuss these issues in person and agreed to meet at an early time once they are able to set a date and location,” Yoon’s deputy national security adviser, Kim Tae-hyo, said.
Mr Yoon congratulated Mr Trump on winning the presidency on the “Make America Great Again” slogan and said the success of the three-way cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the United States was due in part to the foundation laid by Trump’s first presidency, Mr Kim said.
Ukrainian and North Korean troops clash for first time in war
Ukrainian forces have engaged in “small-scale” clashes with North Korean troops in Kursk, Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov said.
“Yes, I think so. It is (an) engagement,” Mr Umerov told South Korea’s KBS television in an interview broadcast yesterday, when asked if a clash had occurred.
The report quoted Mr Umerov as saying that the engagement was small for now, but more are expected as the number of North Koreans deployed grows.
“(There are) already contacts, but after a couple of weeks, we would see a more significant number and upon this, we will review it and analyse it,” he said.
Mr Umerov said the Russian military was trying to pass off the North Korean soldiers as Buryats, a Mongolian ethnic group from Siberia, making their identification more challenging for Kyiv.
Drone attack in Kyiv damages apartment, no injuries
Russian drones struck a district of Kyiv just outside the city centre early today, with authorities reporting damage to an apartment and garages being set ablaze, but no injuries.
Air defences were in operation after midnight in the Ukrainian capital.
Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said an apartment had been badly damaged and garages had been set on fire in the Holosiivskyi district.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said falling drone fragments had triggered the fires. Emergency crews were on their way to the scene.
Air raid alerts remained in effect in Kyiv and through most of central and southern Ukraine for more than an hour.
North Korea’s troops heading to Ukraine’s frontline as cannon fodder: ‘They will surely be killed’
The G7, involving some of the world’s richest nations, have made clear that they believe the reports of thousands of North Korean troops being used to bolster Russian forces in Ukraine show Vladimir Putin’s “desperation” to compensate for losses on the frontline.
Putin’s forces are believed to be losing hundreds of troops a day, with Ukrainian estimates going as high as 1,200 to 1,500, so the more than 10,000 troops South Korea believes are in Russia would last two weeks or so at that rate.
“In the big picture, even 12,000 soldiers don’t affect the general situation of the war significantly,” says Emil Kastehelmi, who runs the Black Bird Group, which tracks the war in Ukraine.
North Korea troops heading to Ukraine as cannon fodder: ‘They will surely be killed’
G7 nations say Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops is a sign of desperation as Vladimir Putin looks to plug troop losses
Pictured: Russian man holds single picket against the US policy in Ukraine
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