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David Lammy says he sees no imminent end to war despite Trump’s promises
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North Korean army will support the “just cause” of Russia’s war in Ukraine, dictator Kim Jong Un said in the first admission of its army’s support to the invasion.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that North Korean soldiers have been “brought in again” to fight at the frontline in the Kursk region after reports that foreign soldiers were withdrawn following their mounting losses.
North Korean army 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” with Russia, Mr Kim said in latest comments.
Mr Zelensky said a “significant number” of opposing forces had been eliminated, adding that “we’re talking hundreds of Russian and North Korean servicemen”.
It comes as Ukraine launched a new assault inside Russia’s Kursk oblast, expanding its incursion into Russian territory by as much as three miles.
Next week, Donald Trump is likely to meet Mr Zelensky to discuss Ukraine‘s war to repel Russian invaders.
UK foreign secretary David Lammy said the conflict in Ukraine is unlikely to end soon, despite Donald Trump’s assurances of negotiating a rapid resolution.
Ukraine’s $1.3 billion drone war is now being led by a rap artist who has been fighting on the front line – and in his music – since the start of the war, Sam Kiley reports
Ukraine’s $1.3 billion drone war is now being led by a rap artist who has been fighting on the front line – and in his music – since the start of the war, Sam Kiley reports
An underwater Russian Baltic Sea telecoms cable was damaged by an “external impact”, Russia’s TASS news agency cited the country’s state-owned Rostelecom company 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 under way and the incident has had no impact on subscribers so far, Rostelecom added.
Rostelecom did not provide further details and it was unclear when the damage occurred. Finland’s coast guard said earlier on Saturday on platform X that it was monitoring a Russian vessel repairing a broken Russian cable in the Gulf of Finland.
The Baltic Sea region has been on high alert after a string of outages affecting power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines between the Baltics and Sweden or Finland, leading to increased surveillance operations by Nato members.
All were believed to have been caused by ships dragging anchors along 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 winning the selection contest with the song “Birds of Prey”.
The band will represent the war-torn nation with their song “Bird of Pray” at the 13-17 May competition in Basel, Switzerland.
Russia, however, remains banned from the world’s largest song contest organised by the European Broadcasting Union.
The three Baltic states disconnected their electricity systems from Russia’s power grid on Saturday, the region’s operators said, part of a plan designed to integrate the countries more closely with the European Union and boost security.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from the IPS/UPS joint network and, subject to last-minute tests, they will synchronise with the EU’s grid at 1200 GMT on Sunday after operating on their own in the meantime.
“We’ve reached the goal we for strived for, for so long. We are now in control,” Lithuanian Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas told a press conference.
Plans for the Baltics to decouple from the grid of their former Soviet imperial overlord, debated for decades, gained momentum following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The grid was the final remaining link to Russia for the three countries, which reemerged as independent nations in the early 1990s at the fall of the Soviet Union, and joined the European Union and Nato in 2004.
Russia has yet to see any positive steps from the new US administration on disarmament, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva said in an interview published on Sunday.
“We are ready to maintain smooth relations of cooperation with any American administration,” Gennady Gatilov said, according to 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 conference, an international disarmament forum that meets in the Swiss city, has negotiated a number of major multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements, including on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated after last month’s inauguration of Donald Trump as US president that he sees Mr Trump’s second term as a chance for a new era 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 said. “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 number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them, is due to expire on February 5, 2026.
It is the last remaining pillar of nuclear arms control between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has said that the army and the people of the country support “just cause” of the Russian army in war against 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.
The Russians taking Pokrovsk would split Ukraine’s defensive line in the region and harm supplies in the eastern part of Donetsk. Now facing constant bombardment, soldiers and residents in Pokrovsk speak to Askold Krushelnycky about the drawn-out siege they are bracing themselves for
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 convinced that the ICC will continue to fulfil important functions in Ukraine’s case, in particular bringing Russian war criminals to responsibility,” 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 long history,” Mr Tykhyi added.
The Ukrainian move has reportedly been driven by dwindling manpower reserves
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