Russia Ukraine war latest news: Putin’s North Korea weapons threat ‘incredibly concerning’, says US

South Korea’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador in protest of the pact between Moscow and North Korea signed in Pyongyang this week.

First vice foreign minister Kim Hong-kyun conveyed Seoul’s stance on the pact and military cooperation between Russia and North Korea to Georgy Zinoviev, the top Russian envoy to Seoul, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

Mr Kim told Mr Zinoviev that Russia’s military support for North Korea harms South Korea’s security and would inevitably have a “negative impact” on relations between Seoul and Moscow. He also urged Russia to “act responsibly,” according to the ministry.

South Korean National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said on Thursday that Seoul would review the possibility of supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to the landmark pact.

A junkyard of burnt cars. Shattered glass and shell fragments. Bodies lining the streets.

This is Oleksandr Mykhed’s language of war. This is the language of Ukrainians. This is, he says, what we should be ready for: “Because this might happen in your country, and you’d better be prepared for that.”

Mykhed – one of Ukraine’s most prolific authors – is in London promoting his tenth book, The Language of War. His once floppy blonde hair is gone, shaved into a military-style buzz cut instead; it is a nod to his second job, the one he did not choose.

My colleague Tom Watling has more in this report:

Russian air defences downed 70 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and Crimea overnight, the Russian defence ministry has claimed via the RIA news agency this morning.

The ministry also said Russian forces destroyed six Ukrainian sea drones in the Black Sea.

Ukraine can use US-supplied weapons to hit Russian forces that are firing on Ukrainian troops anywhere across the border into Russia and not just in Russian territory near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Pentagon said yesterday.

Last month, president Joe Biden quietly authorised Kyiv to launch US-supplied weapons at military targets inside Russia.

But officials said at the time that Biden’s decision applied only to targets inside Russia near the border with Ukraine‘s eastern Kharkiv region.

Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told reporters that while there had been no change in policy, Ukraine’s use of weapons against Russian troops was not limited to near Kharkiv on the Russian side.

“The ability to be able to fire back when fired upon is really what this policy is focused on… as we see Russian forces firing across the border, the ability for Ukraine to fire back at those ground forces using US-provided munitions,” Ryder said.

“It’s self-defense and so it makes sense for them to be able to do that,” he added.

The trial of US ballerina Ksenia Karelina, 33, who was accused of high treason after sending a meagre $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity, has begun in western Russia today.

The 33-year-old, originally from Yekaterinburg but who moved to the US, sent money to the Ukrainian foundation Razom for Ukraine on the third day of the war in 2022. When she then visited her family at the start of this year in Russia, she was detained.

The press service of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court reported that Karelina “initiatively carried out a transfer of funds in the interests of one of the Ukrainian organizations, which were subsequently sent for the acquisition of tactical medicine items, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.

Judge Andrei Mineev, who is also considering the case of jailed US journalist Evan Gershkovich, closed the trial to the press.

You can read more about the case here.

Volodymyr Zelensky announced a set of measures to protect Ukraine’s energy system, including protection for plants coming under Russian fire and the development of alternative renewable energy sources.

“Life in Ukraine must be preserved and that includes in particular energy security,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly video address.

Mr Zelensky outlined plans to minimise the effects of such attacks, including a programme of developing solar energy and energy storage facilities and a schedule for critical infrastructure sites to come up with alternative energy sources.

The work, he said, must be completed before winter and the increased energy demand associated with the change in seasons.

Mr Zelensky said the government would “continue to work on creating new energy generation and new decentralised energy capacities”. Also planned was “the construction of new balanced and manoeuvrable capacities for energy”.

“This process is quite challenging in wartime conditions, but we must implement it just as we have already implemented many difficulty projects,” he said.

And work was proceeding, Mr Zelensky said, on measures to protect existing energy sites.

Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy system in the first winter of the war, launched in February 2022, and renewed its assault on energy targets last March as Ukraine was running low on stocks of Western air defence missiles.

Drone and missile strikes have knocked out half of energy generating capacity since March, according to official accounts.

Attacks yesterday overnight hit four regions and cut power to more than 218,000 consumers, the Energy Ministry said.

Vladimir Putin’s remarks that Russia may supply weapons for North Korea after signing a defence pact with Pyongyang are “incredibly concerning,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Putin suggested after a visit to North Korea this week that such weapons supplies to the isolated nuclear-armed country would be a mirror response to the Western arming of Ukraine.

He also warned that US ally South Korea would be making “a big mistake” if it decided to supply arms to Ukraine, and that Moscow would respond to such a move in a way that would be painful for Seoul.

“It is incredibly concerning,” Miller told a news briefing when asked about Putin’s remarks about possible arms supplies to North Korea.

“It would destabilise the Korean Peninsula, of course, and potentially… depending on the type of weapons they provide, might violate UN Security Council resolutions that Russia itself has supported.”

The treaty signed by Putin and Kim on Wednesday commits each side to provide immediate military assistance to the other in the event of armed aggression against either one of them.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby called it a cause of concern but no surprise. He said Russia’s need for such foreign assistance was a sign of desperation.

“We’ve been talking about this and warning about a burgeoning defence relationship between these two countries now for many months through a series of downgraded intelligence that we’ve put out there,” he said.

“Obviously it’s something we’ve taken seriously.”

Kirby said the US also believed the Russia-North Korea pact would also be a concern to China, which the United States has urged to do more to reign in Pyongyang.

The White House will rush delivery of air defence interceptor missiles to Ukraine by redirecting planned shipments to other allied nations, as Washington scrambles to counter increased Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

National security spokesperson John Kirby said the US had taken the “difficult but necessary decision to reprioritise near-term planned deliveries of foreign military sales to other countries,” though he wouldn’t say which nations would be affected or how many.

“Right now, we know that Ukraine urgently needs these additional capabilities,” Mr Kirby said on a call with reporters, adding, “Obviously more is needed, and it’s needed now.”

The announcement comes after president Joe Biden, during last week’s Group of Seven meeting in Italy, suggested such action might be necessary, saying, “We’ve let it be known for those countries that are expecting, from us, air defence systems in the future, that they’re going to have to wait.”

“Everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met,” Biden said. “And then we will make good on the commitments we made to other countries.”