Russia Ukraine war latest news: Putin gives Kim Jong-un new car as he unleashes barrage of drones on 7 key cities

The Canadian government said Monday it will dispatch more than 800 drones to Ukraine starting as early as this spring.

The Department of National Defence said in a statement that drones have become a critical capability for Ukraine in its war with Russia. It said the drones are important for surveillance and intelligence gathering, and can also be used to move supplies, including munitions.

They will cost more than $95 million Canadian ($70 million) and are part of a previously announced $500 million Canadian ($370 million) in military help for Ukraine.

The Russian-made car was delivered to Kim‘s top aides by the Russian side on February 18, official KCNA news agency said.

The gift was “for his personal use”, Russian state media reported, in what could be a violation of UN ban that Moscow had agreed to adopt against Pyongyang.

Russia’s foreign intelligence chief has said that a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine and was found shot dead in an underground garage in Spain last week was a “moral corpse” when he planned his crimes, Russian news agencies reported.

Spain’s state news agency EFE reported that a body found on 13 February in the town of Villajoyosa, near Alicante in southern Spain, belonged to pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who had landed in Ukraine with his Mi-8 helicopter last August.

“In Russia it is customary to speak either good of the dead or nothing at all,” Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), was quoted as saying when asked about Kuzminov.

“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment when he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” Naryshkin was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

Ukraine‘s GUR military intelligence said Kuzminov had been found dead in Spain.

Kuzminov’s defection to Ukraine was presented last year as a major coup for Kyiv.

He had been living in Spain with a Ukrainian passport under a different name, EFE said. Ukraine‘s Ukrainska Pravda newspaper reported that Kuzminov had been found shot dead.

Russian forces lack the “combat effectiveness to immediately exploit the capture of Avdiivka”, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has claimed in its latest intelligence update.

The Russian MoD announced it had taken over the city over the weekend after five months of costly mechanised and then infantry-led assaults.

The key eastern frontline city had been fought over for 10 years, and could unlock the rest of the Donetsk region in Russia’s bid to control the wider east.

But the British MoD suggested the heavy casualties suffered by Russian forces to seize the city will cap their ability to push on from their new positions.

“It is likely that Russian forces lack the combat effectiveness to immediately exploit the capture of Avdiivka and will require a period of rest and refit,” they wrote on X.

“In the coming weeks, Russia will likely seek to extend its territorial gain beyond Avdiivka.”

In the meantime, images have shown Ukrainian forces shoring up backward defensive positions in the town of Lastochkyne, northwest of Avdiivka.

Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party has proposed that parliament should vote to ratify Sweden’s bid to join NATO on 26 February, a move that it would support.

“Our group wishes to support” Sweden’s NATO bid, the Fidesz party said in a document, asking the Speaker of parliament to include the vote in its agenda next Monday. Fidesz has a huge majority in parliament.

Sweden applied to join NATO nearly two years ago, in a historic shift in policy prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

After a prolonged delay, Hungary will be the last NATO member to approve the Nordic country’s bid to become the bloc’s 32nd member.

Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson welcomed news of Hungary’s plans to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban had signalled on Saturday that parliament could soon ratify the Swedish bid when it convenes for its new spring session.

“It’s good news that our dispute with Sweden will soon be settled,” Orban told supporters, without providing details.

Hungary could discuss deepening economic and defence cooperation with Sweden if the latter’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson were to visit Budapest, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.

Sweden’s defence ministry has announced they will donate military aid to Ukraine worth some 7.1 billion Swedish crowns (£541 million), including the transfer of equipment and fresh cash for arms procurement.

It will be Sweden’s 15th round of aid for Ukraine and the Nordic country’s biggest package to date, taking the overall aid since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 to around 30 billion crowns.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has gifted a car to his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un, the latest signal of deepening relations between two countries that are otherwise increasingly isolated on the global stage.

The Russian-made car was delivered for Mr Kim’s “personal use” on Sunday via a Russian delegation, North Korean state media outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

Mr Putin’s present to Mr Kim is likely to be in violation of Moscow-backed United Nations Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang, which prohibit the supply of luxury goods including all “transportation vehicles” to the East Asian nation.

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Russia unleashed a barrage of drone attacks on seven cities in Ukraine as the country claimed said they had downed all 23 drones with their air defences.

“As a result of combat operations, all 23 “shahids” drones were shot down in Kharkiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions,” the military said on Telegram messaging app.

Former Republican conference chair Liz Cheney has argued that former president Donald Trump has created the “Putin wing” of the Republican Party, a section backing the Russian president.

Ms Cheney, 57, was on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday warning of the Putin wing possibly coming back to the White House in the form of former president Donald Trump.

She slammed the ex-president for his recent comments saying that he wouldn’t protect Nato countries who don’t pay their fair share, recounting how he told a fellow world leader that he would urge Russia to do “whatever the hell they want”.

John Bowden and Gustaf Kilander have more in this report: