North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to discuss military issues and the regional security environment, state media said Thursday.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim and Shoigu talked Wednesday in the capital, Pyongyang, and reached a consensus on unspecified “matters of mutual concern in the field of national defence and security and on the regional and international security environment.”
The Associated Press reports that during the meeting, Shoigu conveyed to Kim a “warm and good letter” signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, KCNA said. The report did not specify the military matters that were discussed.
On Wednesday, Shoigu also held talks with North Korean Defence Minister Kang Sun Nam that were aimed at “strengthening cooperation between our defence departments,” Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Key events
Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting casualties and damage within the occupied regions of Ukraine.
It states that Russian-imposed authorities in occupied Zaporizhzhia have recorded two injuries in the city of Tokmak due to Ukrainian shelling.
In Lysychansk, the occupying authorities report that a school was damaged on Wednesday evening when it was struck by Ukrainian forces. The message on Telegram states “cluster munitions were used, which are prohibited by the Geneva Convention!”
More than 120 countries have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of the weapons. Russia and Ukraine have both declined to sign the treaty.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, has given civilian casualtiy figures in the Ukraine-controlled portion of the region. On Telegram he stated that in the last 24 hours one person was killed and nine injured.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Christopher Miller is near Bakhmut for the FT, and this morning has filed for them a report explaining how Ukraine’s tactics have changed in their counteroffensive after early heavy losses. He writes:
The losses from Ukraine’s much vaunted counteroffensive were heavy and early. Pushing into the country’s sprawling southern fields earlier this summer, Kyiv lost almost a fifth of Nato kit provided for the operation, according to Ukrainian and western officials.
Kyiv’s military response across much of the frontline is now becoming clear: to change tactics. The shift in fighting doctrine applied in recent weeks, according to Ukrainian commanders, appears to be achieving some hard-fought but tangible results on the battlefield, at a more tolerable cost.
Rather than dart across Russian minefields aiming to punch through enemy lines with Nato armour, Ukrainian forces have moved their focus to pounding Russian defensive positions with heavy artillery fire.
Artillery gunners operating multiple-launch rocket systems and howitzers, some loaded with US-supplied cluster munitions, aim to clear pathways for small teams of sappers and infantry units. These troops then attempt to advance methodically on foot, moving forward one narrow tree line at a time in a select few spots along the 1,000-kilometre front line.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this round-up of overnight news on its Telegram channel:
At night, the Russian Federation launched eight Shahed drones and two Kalibr cruise missiles over Ukraine. Air defence forces shot down all the drones, the Kalibr could not be hit, the air force reported.
Russian troops hit the port infrastructure of Odesa: a security guard was killed when a rocket hit the administration building of the port, and the equipment of one of the cargo terminals was damaged.
The Russian army struck Kivsharivka in Kharkiv, with a guided aerial bomb. A 74-year-old woman was killed when a five-story building was hit nearby, and four more people were injured.
During the night Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions also came under fire. There were no injuries.
Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, said an overnight thunderstorm had helped Russia in the attack on Odesa.
“The enemy took advantage of the weather conditions, and launched the missile during the thunder and wind and at an extremely low height in order to make spotting them more difficult,” she said.
Reuters reports Ukraine’s air force said it wasn’t able to shoot down the Kalibr missiles, although it said it had downed eight drones overnight in other regions of Ukraine.
Russia kills one in overnight missile attack on Odesa
Russia hit port infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region in overnight missile attack, killing a security guard and damaging a cargo terminal, the region’s governor said.
Odesa’s ports have been regular targets for Russian attacks since Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain initiative last week.
Governor Oleg Kiper wrote on Telegram:
At night, [Russia] launched a missile attack on the Odesa region.
The target of the aggressor is the port infrastructure.
The Russians fired Caliber missiles from a submarine in the Black Sea.
A civil guard born in 1979 died as a result of the hit.
The equipment of one of the cargo terminals was damaged, the security building and two cars were destroyed.
Sincere condolences to the family of the deceased.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a weekly briefing that Moldova’s decision would “not go unanswered,” calling it “another step in the destruction of bilateral relations” between the countries.
The Kremlin said it regretted Moldova’s decision and accused the country’s leadership of encouraging “Russophobia”.
“Unfortunately, Chișinău is deliberately driving our relations into a very miserable state,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters:
Moldova orders Moscow diplomats to leave
Moldova has ordered 45 Russian diplomats and embassy staff to leave, sharply reducing the number of officials Russia can have in its capital Chișinău, while citing years of “hostile actions” by Moscow.
“We agreed on the need to limit the number of accredited diplomats from Russia, so that there are fewer people trying to destabilize the Republic of Moldova,” foreign minister Nicu Popescu said at a cabinet meeting.
Russia will have until 15 August to cut its embassy personnel from more than 80 to 25, the foreign ministry said.
“For many years we have been the object of hostile Russian actions and policies. Many of them were made through the embassy,” Popescu said.
North Korea’s official news agency reported that at a reception hosted by Kang, Shoigu praised the North Korean People’s army under the leadership of Kim, saying it “has become the strongest army in the world.” Russian media reports did not include that comment.
North Korea has been aligning with Russia over the war in Ukraine, insisting that the “hegemonic policy” of the US-led West forced Moscow to take military action to protect its security interests. The Biden administration has accused North Korea of providing arms to Russia to aid its fighting in Ukraine, although the North has denied the claim.
Both Moscow and Beijing have been derailing US efforts to strengthen UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea over its flurry of missile tests.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to discuss military issues and the regional security environment, state media said Thursday.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim and Shoigu talked Wednesday in the capital, Pyongyang, and reached a consensus on unspecified “matters of mutual concern in the field of national defence and security and on the regional and international security environment.”
The Associated Press reports that during the meeting, Shoigu conveyed to Kim a “warm and good letter” signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, KCNA said. The report did not specify the military matters that were discussed.
On Wednesday, Shoigu also held talks with North Korean Defence Minister Kang Sun Nam that were aimed at “strengthening cooperation between our defence departments,” Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang to discuss military issues and the regional security environment, state media said Thursday. North Korea has aligned with Russia over the war in Ukraine, insisting that the “hegemonic policy” of the US-led west forced Moscow to take military action to protect its security interests.
Meanwhile, Moldova has ordered 45 Russian diplomats and embassy staff to leave “over numerous unfriendly actions”, officials said on Wednesday. Moldova’s pro-EU government has firmly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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Ukrainian forces have stepped up their counteroffensive after two months of gruelling, incremental gains, mounting a new push in the south of the country while edging closer to the fiercely contested eastern city of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian army is pouring thousands of western-trained and equipped reinforcements into a perceived weak spot in Russian defences in the Zaporizhzhia region. Ukraine is also attempting a partial encirclement of Bakhmut, pushing from the north and south to threaten Russian forces within.
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The Ukrainian security service has claimed responsibly for the Crimea Bridge blast that happened in October last year. Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said his agency was behind the attack, speaking in comments shown on television as he presented a commemorative postage stamp marking wartime special forces operations.
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Nato said on Wednesday it was stepping up surveillance of the Black Sea region as it condemned Russia’s exit from a deal assuring the safe passage of ships carrying Ukrainian grain. The announcement came after a meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Council, a body established earlier this month to coordinate cooperation between the western military alliance and Kyiv.
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The Kremlin said it was impossible for Russia to return to the Black Sea grain export deal for now, as an agreement related to Russian interests was “not being implemented”. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, however, that Vladimir Putin had made it clear the deal could be revived if its Russia-focused part was honoured.
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The Kremlin said on Wednesday that just 17 African heads of state would be attending this week’s Russia-Africa summit. This is far fewer than at its 2019 conference or at similar summits held elsewhere, including a meeting in December with Joe Biden that dozens of African leaders flew to Washington DC to attend.
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The EU announced a ban on exports of battlefield equipment and aviation parts to Belarus. Spain, the current holder of the EU’s rotating chair, said in a post on social media that the new sanctions were a response to “the situation in Belarus and the involvement of Belarus in the Russian aggression against Ukraine”.
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A criminal case was opened against a Ukrainian lawmaker suspected of taking a luxury Maldives holiday. Private trips abroad by officials have been banned since January. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to allude directly to the case in his nightly speech on Tuesday, in which he railed against corruption and officials who shirk their responsibilities during the war.
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Ukraine will spend $1bn on domestic drone manufacturing this year. Prime minister, Denys Shmyhal announced 40bn hryvnia ($1.08b) would be invested into domestic drone manufacturing.
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Russian armed forces claimed to have struck at a Ukrainian fuel warehouse and training centre in Donetsk. Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, also reported that “during the night and morning of 26 July, the Russian army shelled six communities of Sumy oblast”
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A decade-long failure by the British government has allowed the Wagner network to grow, spreading its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, according to a highly critical report from the UK’s foreign affairs select committee. It called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.
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President Vladimir Putin is planning to visit China in October, the Kremlin has said. “It is known that we have received an invitation and that we intend to go to China when the Belt and Road Forum is held in October,” Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian president on international affairs, said in comments carried by Russian news agencies.
