Ukraine-Russia war latest: North Korea ratifies military pact with Moscow

Old Soviet tanks have been borrowed from museums to help train Ukrainian troops on what a commander of the EU training mission for Kyiv says are booby-trap tactics used by Russian soldiers on the battlefield.

Instructors from 17 nations have trained some 18,000 Ukrainian troops in Germany to operate high-spec tanks or precision air defence systems and passed on their skills to snipers, engineers, paramedics and for drone warfare.

But with the Russian and Ukrainian armies blasting thousands of shells at each other every day in grinding combat that echoes the trench warfare of World War One, Ukraine has also sought training in circumstances more representative of the battlefield reality as well as on some older equipment.

So the German military has dug trench systems according to Russian standards and borrowed museum piece Soviet tanks to enhance the on-the-ground experience at some of its training sites.

“These (museum) systems are in use on the Russian side, and they sometimes plant booby traps in abandoned gear,” Lieutenant-General Andreas Marlow, head of the EU’s Special Training Command near Berlin, told Reuters.

“Providing such vehicles in the training makes it easier to demonstrate where to be cautious to make sure that you don’t trigger an explosion if you find them on the battlefield and open the door.”

Russian attacks have killed at least two people in Ukraine’s central-east Dnipropetrovsk region and injured at least 19, with more people likely trapped under the rubble, officials said.

Shelling by artillery killed two people in Nikopol and injured five more, damaging a medical facility, a cafe and shops, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said.

Separately, at least 14 people were wounded after Moscow’s troops launched a missile at a residential building in Kryvyi Rih in the morning, according to Lysak. Rescuers were looking for a woman with three children likely trapped under the rubble, he added. A 10-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy were among the injured.

Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile smashed into cities in southern and eastern Ukraine yesterday, officials said, killing at least six civilians and injuring about 30 others.

Ukraine resident Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia has recently intensified strikes that have long tormented civilian areas, in an apparent effort to unnerve Ukrainians and wear down their willingness to keep up a war that is approaching its 1,000-day milestone.

“Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror,” Mr Zelensky said.

“Except that an increasing number of civilian objects are becoming targets.”Both Russia and Ukraine are waiting to see how Washington will change its policy on the war after Donald Trump takes office as the US president in January.

The US is the biggest provider of military help to Ukraine, but Mr Trump has chided the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars of aid.

North Korea ratified a major defence treaty with Russia stipulating mutual military aid, the North’s state media reported today, as the US, South Korea and Ukraine say North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

Russia had completed the ratification of the treaty last week after it was signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. It is considered both countries’ biggest defence deal since the end of the Cold War.

North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, has the right to ratify treaties but Kim can unilaterally ratify major ones, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

The treaty requires both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked. Some observers speculate the treaty’s ratification in both countries could signal North Korea could formally enter the Russia-Ukraine war soon.

The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership treaty will take effect when both sides exchange documents on the ratification, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

North Korea ratified the treaty through a decree signed Monday by the country’s president of state affairs, KCNA said, using one of Mr Kim’s titles.

The Kremlin has claimed to sense that European nations are nervous about Donald Trump’s re-election, but said that they were still “pumping weapons into Ukraine in order to continue this war to the end”.

Asked about reports that Sir Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron want to convince Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to fire Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “Nothing can be ruled out”, adding that European leaders still want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

“We, in turn, will continue the [special military operation] until we achieve all our goals,” he added. “The dynamic of the SMO is well understood by the military. They understand well what is happening. And it is probably important to note that no individual types of weapons are able to change this dynamic anymore.”

A Ukrainian drone attack triggered a fire in Russia’s southern Belgorod region and firefighters quickly brought the blaze under control, the regional governor said early today.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said one of the tanks at the depot had caught fire in the Starkooskolsky District near the Ukrainian border. At least 10 fire crews were dispatched to the site and put out the blaze.

A British family has paid tribute to their “brave” son who has been killed while fighting in Ukraine.

Callum Tindal-Draper, 22, from Gunnislake, Cornwall, was killed in action while serving with the foreign volunteer platoon in the country’s struggle against Russia. In an interview with the BBC, his father Steven Draper said he begged his son not to travel to Ukraine, but he told him he was “not frightened of bullies”.

“We begged and begged and begged him not to go,” his father said. “But Callum said ‘dad, I’m not frightened of bullies and what’s going on in Ukraine is awful and someone needs to stand up for these people’.”

In a tribute, his mother Caroline Tindal wrote: “He fought till he could no longer hold them off any more and his platoon are calling him a ‘hero’ and ‘As brave as they come’. 22 is a young age. But you lived and died following your heart, soul and morals.”

Donald Trump Jr took a swipe at Volodymyr Zelensky after sharing a social media post suggesting that the Ukrainian president was just weeks away from losing his “allowance” – a reference to US military funding for fighting Vladimir Putin’s.

President-elect Donald Trump has staunchly criticised the Biden Administration spending more than $64 billion in providing security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of the nation in February 2022, according to figures from the US Department of State.

On Sunday, Trump’s eldest son mocked Mr Zelensky in a social media tirade, teasing that Ukraine’s military aid budget was about to be abolished.

The outspoken political scion shared an Instagram post by former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, as per screenshots taken by the Daily Beast, with the caption: “POV: You’re 38 Days from losing your allowance.”

Our US news reporter James Liddell has more details in this report: