Ukraine live: Blasts heard in Kyiv as more than 10,000 North Koreans now in Russia

A Russian attack on Ukraine‘s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia killed six people and injured nine more, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday.

He said earlier that the Russian forces had attacked an infrastructure facility in the city.

Poland plans to invest 3 billion zlotys (£577 million) to boost ammunition production, according to a bill published late on Monday, aiming to ensure it has sufficient supplies in the event of an attack from Russia.

Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has become Nato’s biggest spender on defence in relation to the size of its economy, with the 2025 budget allocating 4.7 per cent of gross domestic product for the purpose.

“The draft act aims to create opportunities to provide financing for activities aimed at increasing the capacity for ammunition production,” the bill says, with a particular need to expand large-caliber production to bolster the potential of the Polish Armed Forces.

The government aims to adopt the bill during the fourth quarter, according to its website.

Some Nato officials have said the Kremlin might be ready militarily to attack Nato countries in five to eight years’ time, once it has rebuilt its forces after the war in Ukraine. Moscow has regularly dismissed Western suggestions that it might consider an attack on Nato.

In September Maciej Idzik, a board member of the state-owned Polish Armaments Group (PGZ), told Reuters that Warsaw aimed to ramp up its production of 155 mm artillery rounds.

Photos have dropped on the wires from the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.

Russian forces are only several miles away from the city, a linchpin of the wider region’s defences.

The Ukrainian air force shot down 48 out of 79 drones and two missiles launched by Russia overnight. The air force said the location of 30 other drones had been lost, while another had returned to Russia.

An overnight attack using guided aerial bombs on the eastern city of Kharkiv also injured two people and damaged windows in three apartment buildings, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

A drone attack on the northeastern region of Sumy damaged a gas station, regional authorities added.

Germany will give Ukraine another 200 million euros ($218 million) in aid to support the country during its third winter at war with Russia, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during a visit to Kyiv on Monday.

Baerbock has stressed Germany’s continued backing for Ukraine during the trip, which comes amid growing nerves over the impact Tuesday’s election in the United States will have on military support for the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting in Moscow on Monday with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, at a time of mounting concern in the West about growing military ties between the two countries.

Video of the meeting showed the pair shaking hands for a full minute as Putin greeted Choe in the Kremlin.

Putin noted that they were meeting on Russia’s National Unity Day, a public holiday, and Choe conveyed “sincere, warm, comradely greetings” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Ukraine’s air defence units were trying to repel a second wave of overnight drone attacks by Russia on Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said this morning.

Air defence systems were engaged in repelling an attack in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi district, Klitschko wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

Earlier, air defence units were trying to repel an attack on the city’s Holosiisvskyi district.

outh Korean and the European Union on Monday strongly condemned North Korea’s reported dispatch of troops to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine and expressed concerns that Russia could reward North Korea with transfers of sensitive technology to enhance its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea’s troop deployment, which was confirmed by the U.S. and NATO, threatens to expand the almost 3-year-long war and is causing security jitters in South Korea and elsewhere about what Russia could give North Korea in return.

After a meeting in Seoul, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a joint statement condemning in the “strongest possible terms” North Korea’s deployment and voicing worries about Russia’s possible provision of materials and technology to North Korea in support of its military objectives. “We are also deeply concerned about the possibility for any transfer of nuclear- or ballistic missile-related technology to the DPRK, which would jeopardize the international non-proliferation efforts and threaten peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and across the globe,” the statement said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.