Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s bombing campaign puts ‘all options on the table’, says Trump official

North Korea casualties fighting for Russia in Ukraine war have been estimated at 2,000, a South Korea spy agency reportedly said.

Kim Jong Un has heavily backed his ally Vladimir Putin in the war in Ukraine, supplying over 15,000 troops for deployment in Russia’s Kursk region.

Isolated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is set to be treated diplomatically on a par with Russian president Vladimir Putin during their visits to China, intelligence officials in South Korea have said.

North Korea observers are paying keen attention to the way China’s Xi interacts with Kim and Putin, the two aggressors in the Ukraine war. The three leaders, despite all being close allies, have never before held a trilateral meeting.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service today said Kim will likely receive special protocol and security measures akin to those given to Putin, said Lee Seong Kweun, a lawmaker who attended the meeting.

Kim may also be seen standing alongside Xi and Putin on the rostrum in Tiananmen Square during tomorrow’s military parade, the South Korean spy agency said.

It is also anticipated that Kim will hold bilateral meetings with the Chinese and Russian leaders and interact with other heads of state at a reception and cultural performance as he seeks to further break out of isolation and expand his diplomatic footing, Lee said.

This is Kim’s first visit to China since 2019 and the fifth visit to the neighbouring nation in total since he inherited power upon his father’s death in late 2011.

Kim possibly meeting Xi bilaterally as well and holding trilateral meeting with Xi and Putin. The three leaders have met bilaterally previously but have yet to hold a trilateral meeting.

North Korea has released a documentary about its soldiers’ exploits fighting for Russia in the Ukraine war, including accounts of soldiers blowing themselves up with grenades.

In the documentary aired on Sunday night by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central Television, two young North Korean soldiers, Yun Jong-hyuk, 20, and Woo Hi-Hyuk, 19, hugged each other and used a grenade to kill themselves after being ambushed by the Ukrainian forces. North Korean officials have labeled such battlefield suicides as “heroic sacrifices”.

Kim Jong Un has heavily backed his ally Vladimir Putin in the war in Ukraine, supplying over 15,000 troops for deployment in Russia’s Kursk region.

Another episode recounted in the documentary features a 22-year-old soldier killing himself with a grenade after being wounded, “heroically” stopping his comrades from trying to save him.

Ukrainian officials have previously described North Korean soldiers using suicide as a method of avoiding being captured alive.

The documentary listed hundreds of North Korean war dead, touting their sacrifices as “the start of their bright eternal life.”

The Russian leader, who is attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) forum in China’s Tianjin City, said he would discuss the Alaska meeting with leaders attending the summit.

The plane landed safely at Plovdiv International Airport in the country’s south-central region on Monday.

The commission’s spokesperson Arianna Podestà said that Ms Von der Leyen would continue her planned tour of the seven European Union nations bordering Russia and Belarus.

“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” Ms Podestà said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin dangled the prospect of peace in Ukraine when he met with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska’s Anchorage last month.

The two met on 15 August, but did not agree a ceasefire. Instead, it was Trump who changed his tune – adopting the Russian line that a ceasefire wasn’t necessary, and only a full peace agreement could end the war.

In the weeks that followed, Russia has significantly amped up its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, a development Trump’s treasury secretary Scott Bessent has called “despicable”.

This graph from the Institute for the Study of War shows the spike in Russian attacks after the summit between Putin and Trump.

That period includes three overnight bombardments that involved 500 or more drones plus missiles, and one of the most devastating air raids on Kyiv since the war began.

China’s Xi Jinping is set to convene today with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for their first trilateral gathering, while Donald Trump and other Western leaders watch from afar.

Kim and Putin will join the Chinese president to watch the massive military parade tomorrow in Beijing to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and China’s fight against Japan’s wartime aggressions.

North Korea’s Kim crossed into China in the early hours today aboard his special train, en route to the capital Beijing. Xi and Putin, meanwhile, gathered at the Great Hall of the People for a meeting with Mongolia’s leader expected to touch on a vast gas pipeline project and bilateral talks.

In the talks, Putin thanked his “dear friend” Xi for the warm welcome and said the close communication showed Russia’s relations with China were at an “unprecedentedly high level”, according to a video posted on the Kremlin’s official Telegram messaging app.

“We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics,” Xi told a gathering of more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries at a summit yesterday, in a thinly veiled swipe at his geopolitical rival across the Pacific Ocean.

The gathering of what Western analysts have dubbed the ‘Axis of Upheaval’ could build on a mutual defence pact signed by Russia and North Korea in June 2024, and a similar alliance between Beijing and Pyongyang, an outcome that may alter the military calculus in the Asia-Pacific region.

The union of the three leaders, two of whom are rendered global pariahs over their war efforts, underscore the Chinese president’s influence over authoritarian regimes intent on redefining the Western-led global order, while Trump’s isolationist stance strains long-standing US alliances.

The internal affairs minister, Ihor Klymenko, said the suspect was detained in the western Khmelnytskyi region within 36 hours of the shooting, with the help of dozens of Lviv and national police officers and Security Service of Ukraine employees.

Pupils across Ukraine returned to school on Monday, embarking on a new academic year under the shadow of Russia’s ongoing invasion, with many lessons now taking place underground.

Since the war began in February 2022, schools have innovated to keep education alive.

In Bobryk, a village in the northern Sumy region, close to the front line, one school moved its classrooms into a basement two years ago.

This drastic step was taken as air raid alerts could stretch for up to 20 hours, paralysing surface-level classes.

Principal Oleksii Korenivskyi emphasised the critical importance of their work, stating: “We must do everything so this generation is not lost. Time is the only thing you cannot make up.

“This is our future, and we must give it everything we have.”