Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv says North Korean troops using fake Russian IDs

Switzerland adopted the latest EU sanctions package on Russia and Belarus, the government said on Monday. The move came one week after the European Union targeted Moscow’s vessels and Chinese entities found to have traded with the Russian military.

The Swiss government listed 54 persons and 30 companies and organisations, freezing their assets as of Dec. 24, and banned 52 ships from providing services.

“These are mainly tankers that are part of Russia’s shadow fleet and are circumventing the price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products or transporting military goods for Russia or stolen grain from Ukraine,” the Swiss statement said.

The sanctioned individuals will be barred from entering Switzerland.

In line with EU policy, Switzerland also adopted financial and travel sanctions against 26 individuals and two organisations from Belarus.

The situation with European countries that buy Russian gas is very complicated and requires increased attention, the Kremlin said on Monday after talks the previous day between President Vladimir Putin and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Fico said on Sunday that Putin had confirmed Russian willingness to continue to supply gas to Slovakia, even though the Slovak leader said this was “practically impossible” once a gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expires at the end of the year.

It was not clear what potential solution the two leaders might have discussed.

Ukraine has declined to renew the gas transit deal. President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week this might be possible, but only on condition that Russia was not paid for the gas until after the war was over.

“You heard the statement from the Ukrainian side, and you know about the positions of those European countries that continue to buy Russian gas and that consider this necessary for the normal operation of their economies,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“Therefore, there is now a very complicated situation here that requires increased attention.”

Ukraine‘s security service has named a Russian general it suspects of ordering a missile strike on a hotel in eastern Ukraine in August and said he acted “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of” Reuters.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement on Friday that Colonel General Alexei Kim, a deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, approved the strike that killed Reuters safety adviser Ryan Evans and wounded two of the agency’s journalists on Aug. 24.

In a statement posted on Telegram messenger the SBU said it was notifying Kim in absentia that he was an official suspect in its investigation into the strike on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a step in Ukrainian criminal proceedings that can later lead to charges.

In a separate, 15-page notice of suspicion, in which the SBU set out findings from its investigation, the agency said that the decision to fire the missile was made “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of the international news agency Reuters who were engaged in journalistic activities in Ukraine“.

The document, which was published on the website of the General Prosecutor’s Office on Friday, said that Kim had received intelligence that Reuters staff were staying in Kramatorsk. It added that Kim would have been “fully aware that the individuals were civilians and not participating in the armed conflict”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in an emailed comment to Reuters that “the Russian military only strikes military infrastructure” in Ukraine.

A Russian delegation arrived in Tehran for a visit that includes a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Monday, as the two countries prepare to sign a comprehensive cooperation agreement.

Iran and Russia have been working on setting a date to complete an agreement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, adding that the deal is set to be signed during a bilateral visit in January.

Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other countries hostile towards the United States, such as North Korea, since the start of the Ukraine war.

The country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October that Moscow and Tehran intended to sign a deal which would include closer defence cooperation.

South Korea’s military said on Monday that it has detected signs of North Korea preparing to send more troops and weapons, including suicide drones, to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

North Korea has already provided 240mm multiple rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled howitzers, and was seen preparing to produce more suicide drones to be shipped to Russia after leader Kim Jong Un guided a test last month, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

“Suicide drones are one of the tasks that Kim Jong Un has focused on,” a JCS official said, adding that the North had expressed its intention to give them to Russia.

Such drones have been widely used in the Ukraine war, and Kim ordered a mass production of the aerial weapons and an update of military theory and education, citing intensifying global competition, state media reported.

Seoul, Washington and Kyiv have said there are around 12,000 North Korean troops in Russia. The JCS said at least 1,100 of them had been killed or wounded, in line with last week’s briefing by South Korea’s spy agency which reported some 100 deaths with another 1,000 wounded in the Kursk region.

US president-elect Donald Trump said Russian president Vladimir Putin has expressed his interest in a meeting him to discuss the Ukraine war.

“President Putin said that he wants to meet with me as soon as possible,” Mr Trump said during his remarks at Turning Point’s America Fest convention yesterday. “So we have to wait for this, but we have to end that war. That war is horrible, horrible,” he was quoted as saying by CNBC.

“The number of soldiers being killed…” Mr Trump said. “It’s a flat plane, and the bullets are going and there’s powerful bullets, powerful guns, and the only thing that’s going to stop them is a human body.”

Earlier, Mr Trump has claimed he could end the Ukraine war “in 24 hours” if he gets elected.

Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 47 out of 72 Russia-launched drones across the country.

In a statement on Telegram this morning, it said that an additional 25 drones had not reached targets and were “locationally lost”.