Ukraine-Russia live: South Korea ‘won’t stand idle’ over North bolstering Putin’s forces as Kyiv downs drones

Nato allies are actively discussing the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, a Nato spokesperson has said.

“Allies have confirmed evidence of a DPRK troop deployment to Russia”, spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said, without specifying which allies.

“We are actively consulting within the Alliance on this matter, and the North Atlantic Council will receive a briefing from [South Korea] and further discuss this matter soon.”

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said earlier on Wednesday there is evidence that North Korean troops are in Russia but that it remained to be seen what they would be doing there.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry has said that the BRICS summit declaration demonstrated that the organisation had no unified position on the war in Ukraine.

“Moscow’s attempts to impose an idea of an alleged alternative position of the so-called Global South regarding Russian aggression against Ukraine have failed again,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The declaration demonstrated that the BRICS as an association does not have a joint position on Russian aggression against Ukraine,” it added.

BRICS leaders including China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in Gaza and made positive noises about a non-Western payment system but mentioned Ukraine just once in their final communique.

While the 43-page document called for a ceasefire in Gaza and ranged from geopolitics to the preservation of big cats, it mentioned Ukraine just once.

“We recall national positions concerning the situation in and around Ukraine as expressed in the appropriate fora,” the communique said. “We note with appreciation relevant proposals of mediation and good offices, aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian premier Narendra Modi used a BRICS summit in Russia on Wednesday to showcase ambitions for a more harmonious relationship between the world’s two most populous countries after years of animosity.

The meeting between Xi and Modi, who have not held formal talks for five years, was one highlight of a summit which Vladimir Putin sought to use to show that the West had failed to isolate Russia over the Ukraine war.

A final communique listed a number of projects aimed at facilitating trade between BRICS nations – including an alternative payment system to the dollar – but did not include details or timelines.

Just two days after New Delhi announced that it had reached a deal with Beijing to resolve a four-year military stand-off on their disputed Himalayan frontier, Xi told Modi that they should enhance communication and cooperation and effectively manage differences.

“It is in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples for China and India to correctly grasp the trend of history and the direction of development of their relations,” Xi said, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken and former Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg will be knighted in Sweden for their role in enabling the country to join the Western military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in what marked a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security.

In addition to Mr Blinken and Mr Stoltenberg, former Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin and former Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto will receive the Royal Order of the Polar Star, which given to foreign citizens and stateless persons “for extraordinary efforts for Swedish interests.”

Viktor Orban accused the EU of having “led the West into a hopeless war” in Ukraine as the Hungarian premier claimed the bloc was seeking to topple his government in a speech on a national holiday celebrating the 1956 armed uprising against Soviet repression.

Mr Orban has clashed with the bloc repeatedly over the war in Ukraine, having routinely blocked, delayed or watered down EU efforts to extend assistance to Ukraine and sanction Russia.

Mr Orban has also broken with other EU leaders by arguing for an immediate cease-fire and peace talks in Ukraine, leading critics to suggest that he is advocating for Russian interests and turning his back on his EU and Nato partners.

“The Brussels bureaucrats have led the West into a hopeless war,” Mr Orban, who is widely seen as having the closest relationship with Vladimir Putin of any EU leader, told his supporters. “In their minds, dizzy with the hope of victory, this war is the war of the West against Russia ... Now they want to openly push the entire European Union into the war in Ukraine.”

He claimed, without providing evidence, that the EU plans to allow Ukrainian soldiers to station in Hungary after a future victory “to guarantee the security of the whole of Europe.”

He added: “We Hungarians would wake up one morning to find that Slavic soldiers from the east were again stationed on the territory of Hungary. We do not want that, but the pressure from Brussels is getting stronger every day.”

Viktor Orban has claimed in a speech that the European Union seeks to topple his government and install a puppet regime in the Central European country, marking an escalation of open hostility toward the bloc by the member considered to have the warmest ties with Russia.

Speaking before thousands of supporters in Budapest, Orban was marking Hungary’s national holiday commemorating a 1956 armed uprising against Soviet repression that began in the capital and spread across the country before being crushed by the Red Army.

Mr Orban has often used the holiday, which looms large in Hungarians’ memory as a freedom fight against foreign domination, to draw parallels between past occupying forces like the Soviet Union and Ottoman Empire and the EU of today.

“Independent Hungarian politics are unacceptable to Brussels,” Mr Orban told the crowd. “That is why they announced in Brussels that they will get rid of Hungary’s national government. They also announced that they wanted to hang a Brussels puppet government around the country’s neck.”

He added: “Do we bow to foreign will, this time to the will of Brussels, or do we resist it? I propose that our answer be as clear and unambiguous as it was in 1956.”

The EU has withheld billions in financial support from Hungary over its alleged breaches of rule of law, while some of the bloc’s politicians have repeatedly proposed stripping Hungary of its voting rights over democratic backsliding. The EU parliament declared in 2022 that Hungary can no longer be considered a democracy.

A Czech-British journalist has been detained on his arrival in Georgia to cover Saturday’s parliamentary election and was being held at Tbilisi’s airport awaiting a flight to Prague, Czech authorities said.

Ray Baseley, who describes himself as a Czech-British freelance journalist on X, said in a post on the platform on Tuesday that he was refused entry to Georgia “without reasoning or any further explanation”.

Mr Baseley, who reports regularly from Georgia and Ukraine, had arrived to cover the 26 October election which has been widely viewed as a test of whether Georgia returns to Russia’s orbit or maintains its pro-Western orientation.

“The consul personally went to the airport where the man is being held in a detention centre,” the Foreign Ministry said, adding: “She spoke with him, he is fine and waiting for a flight to Prague. We are still interested in concrete reasons for his detention and refusal of entry.”