Ukraine said yesterday that North Korean units fighting for Russia sustained losses of at least 30 soldiers killed or wounded around several villages on the front in Russia’s Kursk region over the weekend.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has slammed Russia and its President Vladimir Putin over two aerial attacks that killed at least 12 people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that his country needed security guarantees from Nato and more weapons to defend itself before any talks with Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his Nato counterparts to issue an invitation to Kyiv at a meeting in Brussels next week to join Nato, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters.

Russia launched more than a hundred drones at Ukraine overnight and early yesterday, killing one person and wounding eight others, officials said.

Russia yesterday unleashed its second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month, cutting power to more than 1 million people in the west, south, and centre of the country, officials said.

Ukraine yesterday showed journalists fragments of the Russian missile used to strike the city of Dnipro last week, after Moscow said it had tested its new Oreshnik ballistic missile.

The Kremlin said yesterday that a strike on Ukraine using a newly-developed hypersonic ballistic missile was designed to warn the West that Moscow will respond to moves by the US and Britain to let Kyiv strike Russia with their missiles.

Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the territory in Russia’s Kursk region that it rapidly seized in a surprise incursion in August as Russian forces have mounted waves of counter-assaults, a senior Ukrainian military source said.

Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during an attack on Ukraine yesterday, Kyiv’s air force said, in the first known use in the war of such a powerful, nuclear-capable weapon with a range of thousands of kilometres.

Russia yesterday accused the US of prolonging the “war in Ukraine” by stepping up weapons deliveries to Kyiv ahead of Donald Trump entering the White House.

Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory for the first time yesterday, Moscow said, in an attack regarded by Russia as a major escalation on the war’s 1,000th day.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday said that Kyiv would like to end the war with Russia next year through “diplomatic means”, as both countries prepare for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Russia yesterday unleashed its largest wave of airstrikes on Ukraine in almost three months, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones in a sweeping attack that killed at least nine people and caused “severe damage” to the power system, officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to discuss Ukraine with Donald Trump but that does not mean he is willing to alter Moscow’s demands, the Kremlin said yesterday.

Russian attacks overnight wounded more than two dozen people in the Ukrainian border city of Kharkiv and killed one in the southern city of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said yesterday, as Moscow’s bombardments escalated.

Russia said yesterday it had captured two Ukrainian villages near the town of Kurakhove, in southeast Ukraine, where Moscow has quickly advanced since seizing the city of Vugledar last month.

The number of undocumented migrants arriving in Britain after crossing the Channel in small boats this year has surpassed 30,000, provisional statistics showed yesterday.

Russia said yesterday it had taken two eastern Ukrainian towns and open-source data indicated that Moscow’s forces were advancing at their fastest pace in at least a year amid signs the conflict is drawing in new players such as North Korea.

Russia said yesterday its military had advanced further in east Ukraine, capturing a frontline village just a few kilometres north of a key Ukrainian-held industrial hub.