Ukraine-Russia latest: Putin faced ‘bloodiest month’ of war in September as Zelensky pitches victory plan

Russian militaty command has redeployed around 50,000 troops to its counteroffensive in Kursk oblast against Ukrainian forces, Ukraine’s military chief said.

“We know that about 50,000 troops from other areas have been redeployed to the Kursk front,” Ukraine commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi told public broadcaster Suspilne last night.

This redeployment by Russia has weakened its position as they are pulling in troops from other parts of the war frontline, he noted. “This, of course, made it easier for us to conduct defensive operations,” General Syrskyi said.

Russia is using North Korean military engineers in the Ukraine war to target Kyiv’s forces with ballistic missiles, senior officials in Kyiv and Seoul said.

They added that the Korean fighters operating in occupied areas of the country have already been killed, reported the Guardian.

Around dozens of North Koreans are behind Russian lines as part of teams firing “support launcher systems for KN 23 missiles”, the report added, citing a source.

North Korean soldiers could fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine, South Korea’s defence minister told the country’s parliament earlier this month after media reports claimed Pyongyang had lost troops in the war.

Kim Yong-hyun claimed that North Korean troops could be sent to Ukraine under the mutual defence treaty signed during Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June.

Russia attacked Ukraine’s port infrastructure almost 60 times in the last three months and is intensifying such strikes, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.

“The purpose of these attacks is to reduce our export potential. We are talking about deliberately provoking a food crisis in those parts of the world that directly depend on Ukrainian grain supplies,” he said.

Mr Kuleba added that strikes damaged or destroyed almost 300 port infrastructure facilities and 22 civilian vessels.

Ukrainian troops can hold their captured territory in Russia’s Kursk for several months, senior US officials said, citing their latest intelligence assessment.

Kyiv’s hold on the territory hinges on the reliable flow of supplies into the region and Russia’s focus on advances in eastern Ukraine, the officials told Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity.

Ukrainian troops are now receiving a steady supply of shells after facing months of dire ammunition shortages, the officials said.

In the past three days, Ukrainian and Russian forces continued assaults in Glushkovsky Raion west of the main Ukrainian salient in Kursk but did not make any confirmed advances, the Institute for the Study of War said.

The World Bank’s executive board has approved the creation of a financial intermediary fund (FIF) to support Ukraine, with contributions expected from the United States, Canada and Japan, three sources familiar with the decision said.

The only objection to the vote came from Russia, two of the sources familiar with the vote said.

The fund, to be administered by the World Bank, will help fulfill a pledge by Group of Seven rich democracies to provide Ukraine with up to $50bn in additional funding by the end of the year as it continues to battle Russia’s invasion over two years ago, the sources said.

Exact amounts to be contributed by the US, Japan and Canada are still being worked out, but will be backed by interest from frozen Russian sovereign assets, one of the sources said.

Military chiefs are considering sending British troops to Ukraine to train soldiers and boost Kyiv’s recruitment efforts, it has emerged.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources confirmed to The Independent that discussions are ongoing about whether to send troops to the country to support it amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

There is already a small number of British medical personnel in Ukraine, delivering training and mentoring to the country’s armed forces.

Last month was the bloodiest month of attrition for Russian forces since Vladimir Putin’s invasion began in 2022, latest US intelligence assessment shows.

According to the US and British military analysts, Russia suffered more than 1,200 casualties a day at an average – totalling to at least 36,000 casualties, the New York Times reported. Officials in the West have called September the costliest month for Moscow’s troops but did not give an exact number of Russian casualties.

September’s casualties of Putin’s troops in Ukraine is slightly surpassing the previous record daily rate of the war seen in May this year.

The US officials say the high number of Russian casualties has been caused by the grinding war of attrition.

Russia has not released an official number of casualties of its forces in Ukraine and treats the information as a state secret.

Work continues regarding military supplies for Ukraine, French president Emmanuel Macron said, following a meeting in Paris with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday.

Mr Macron’s meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart came after Mr Zelensky had held talks earlier with Nato chief Mark Rutte and prime minister Keir Starmer, where they discussed his proposed “victory plan” and whether Ukraine could use Western missiles against targets in Russia.