President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday accused North Korea of sending military personnel to Russia's military and renewed his appeal for more aid to prevent a “bigger war.” “We see a growing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “It's no longer just about transferring arms; it's actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying forces,” he added. “Under these circumstances, we need to evolve our relationships with our partners. It's clear: we need more support on the front lines. We're not talking about a simple list of military equipment, we're talking about more long-range capabilities for Ukraine and more sustained supply of our military. Last week, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said there was a “high possibility” that North Korea would send troops to support Russia in its war with Ukraine. Kim also said at a parliamentary hearing that reports that a North Korean military officer was killed in a Ukrainian attack on Russian-held territory were likely true.
Joe Biden plans to visit Germany this week, officials in Berlin say. The German media said that the US president Meet Prime Minister Olaf Scholz President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who meets in Berlin on Friday, is also expected to raise Ukraine and the Middle East. Mr. Biden's visit was originally scheduled to last four days, but Hurricane Milton forced a postponement, and Mr. Zelenskiy embarked on a trip to European capitals to appeal for lasting support.
The changes announced by Russia in nuclear weapons policy are long overdue and will “cool the enthusiasm” of Western adversaries, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said. He said this in an interview published on Sunday. Lukashenko, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said “impatient people” in the West were already hearing nuclear signals coming from Moscow even before Kremlin leaders announced the changes last month. President Putin said last month that he was expanding the list of scenarios that could prompt Russia to consider launching a nuclear weapon. He said the Russian government would consider any attack supported by nuclear-armed states to be a coordinated attack.
Ukraine's human rights ombudsman has called on international organizations to respond to claims that multiple Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed in Russia's Kursk region. Where Kiev launched its invasion in August. Dmytro Rubinets said on Telegram that he had written to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the allegations. Deep State, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site close to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, said on Sunday that Russian forces shot dead nine surrendered Ukrainian “drone operators and contractors” on October 10. Earlier this month, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office announced that Russian forces had killed 16 captured Ukrainian soldiers in the partially occupied Donetsk region.
Russia's Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that a Russian glide bomb had struck a “concentration” of Ukrainian troops near the border in Russia's western Kursk region. The newspaper said the attack was directed at “strongholds and concentrations of Ukrainian military personnel” and that the bomb was delivered by a Russian Su-34 fighter jet. On August 6, Ukraine invaded Russian sovereign territory for the first time since World War II, crossing the border into the Kursk region and catching Moscow by surprise. Russia has been trying to remove Ukrainian forces for more than two months.
Russia's Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that Russian troops had captured the village of Mikhailevka in eastern Ukraine and were advancing toward Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub. The Ukrainian military announced in a daily report that its forces had repelled 36 attacks by Russian forces in the Pokrovsk region, including near Mykhailivka.
Ukraine's air force announced Sunday that Russia launched 68 drones and four missiles overnight targeting Ukrainian territory. The Air Force announced on the messaging app Telegram that two Iskander-M ballistic missiles hit the Poltava and Odessa regions, and two Kh-59 guided air missiles targeted the Chernihiv and Sumy regions. Ukraine's air defense forces destroyed 31 of the drones, but 36 were missing, most likely intercepted by Ukrainian electronic warfare, the air force said. The remaining drones were still in the air.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that Russian air defense forces had destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones overnight over three regions bordering Ukraine. The ministry announced on the messaging app Telegram that six drones each were shot down over the Belgorod and Kursk regions. One drone was destroyed over the Bryansk region.
