Ukraine-Russia war live: North Korean troops deployed to frontline will ‘surely return in body bags’, US says

A Russian guided bomb struck a high-rise apartment block on Wednesday evening in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, killing an 11-year-old child and injuring at least 29.

Kharkiv region governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram that the child had been pulled from under the rubble with severe head wounds and fractures, but did not survive, reported Reuters.

He added that the strike caused a fire and destroyed most of one entrance.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram: “Our partners can see what is happening every day. And in these conditions, every decision that is put off means, at the very least, dozens of lives and hundreds of Russian bombs used against Ukraine.”

Prosecutors plan to argue that a Massachusetts Air National Guard member who pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine should serve nearly 17 years in prison.

In a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, prosecutors said Jack Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history.”

“As both a member of the United States Armed Forces and a clearance holder, the defendant took an oath to defend the United States and to protect its secrets — secrets that are vital to US national security and the physical safety of Americans serving overseas,” prosecutors wrote. “Teixeira violated his oath, almost every day, for over a year.”

Teixeira’s attorneys will argue that US District Judge Indira Talwani should sentence him to 11 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced 12 November.

In their sentencing memorandum, they acknowledged that their client “made a terrible decision which he repeated over 14 months.”

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in March to six counts of the willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act nearly a year after he was arrested in the most consequential national security leak in years.

The 22-year-old admitted that he illegally collected some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and shared them with other users on the social media platform Discord.

Ukraine could be part of the European Union by 2029 if it completes the necessary reforms, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi said on Tuesday, according to The Kyiv Independent.

The EU had introduced initiatives aimed at accelerating reform processes in Ukraine, Moldova, and the Western Balkans.

“With the Growth Plan, we have made it possible for the Western Balkans, for Moldova, but also for Ukraine [with the Ukraine Facility], to complete the reforms and to have everything ready and to become a member by the end of the next mandate (of the European Commission),” Mr Varhelyi said.

EU leaders agreed in June to start membership negotiations with Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged scores of drone strikes Wednesday as North Korea's top diplomat arrived in Russia for talks after his country reportedly deployed thousands of soldiers to help Moscow's war efforts.

Ukraine's air force said that Russia launched 62 drones and one missile overnight, adding that 33 of them were intercepted and 25 were jammed.

The drones struck a residential building and a kindergarten in Kyiv, injuring nine people, including a child, according to the city administration. "Russian drones did not change their constant tactics – they approached the capital from different directions, at different heights,” it said.

Illia Novikov reports:

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving towards Ukraine.

Mr Austin was speaking at a press conference in Washington with South Korean defence minister Kim Yong-hyun as concerns rise over North Koreans deployed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Some North Korean advance units have already arrived in the Kursk region, where Russia is fighting a Ukranian incursion, and Mr Austin said “the likelihood is pretty high” Moscow will use the troops in combat.

“This is something that we’re going to continue to watch, and we’re going to continue to work with our allies and partners to discourage Russia from employing these troops in combat,” Mr Austin said.

Mr Kim, speaking through an interpreter, said while he doesn’t necessarily believe the deployment will trigger war on the Korean Peninsula, it could increase security threats.

He said there is a “high possibility” that Pyongyang will ask Moscow for technological help to advance its tactical nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, in exchange for its troops.

The US and South Korea have called on North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia, as Robert Wood, US envoy to the UN, said any North Korean soldiers entering Ukraine would “surely return in body bags”.

The Pentagon has said that 10,000 North Korean troops have been deployed by Russia to the frontlines in its war on Ukraine.

“Should DPRK’s troops enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will surely return in body bags. So I would advise Chairman Kim to think twice about engaging in such reckless and dangerous behaviour,” said Mr Wood.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy to the UN, asked on Wednesday why North Korea could not help Moscow when Western countries claimed the right to help Ukraine.

Russia was accused at a Security Council meeting by the US, Britain, South Korea, Ukraine and their allies of violating UN resolutions and the founding UN Charter with the deployment of troops from North Korea, according to Reuters.

“Supporting an act of aggression, which completely violates the principles of the UN Charter, is illegal,” said South Korea’s UN ambassador Hwang Joonkook.

“Any activities that are entailed with the DPRK’s dispatch of troops to Russia are clear violations of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions.”Mr Nebenzia said Russia’s military agreement with North Korea did not violate international law.

“Even if everything that’s being said about the cooperation between Russia and North Korea by our Western colleagues is true, why is it that the United States and allies are trying to impose on everyone the flawed logic that they have the right to help the Zelensky regime ... and Russian allies have no right to do a similar thing?” Mr Nebenzia asked.

The thousands of young soldiers North Korea has sent to Russia, reportedly to help fight against Ukraine, include many elite special forces, but that hasn't stopped speculation they'll be slaughtered because they have no combat experience, no familiarity with the terrain and will likely be dropped onto the most ferocious battlefields.

That may be true, and soon. Observers say some of the troops have already arrived at the front. From the North Korean perspective, however, these soldiers might not be as miserable as outsiders think. They may, in fact, view their Russian tour with pride and as a rare chance to make good money, see a foreign country for the first time and win preferred treatment for their families back home, according to former North Korean soldiers.

"They are too young and won't understand exactly what it means. They'll just consider it an honor to be selected as the ones to go to Russia among the many North Korean soldiers," said Lee Woong-gil, a former member of the same special forces unit, the Storm Corps. He came to South Korea in 2007. "But I think most of them won't likely come back home alive."

Troop deployment is Kim's 'big gamble'

Worries about North Korea's likely participation in the Russian-Ukraine war were highlighted this week when the Pentagon said North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia, and that they will likely fight against Ukraine "over the next several weeks." South Korea's presidential office said Wednesday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been moved close to battlefronts in western Russia.

North Korea's troop deployment could mark a serious escalation of the almost three-year war. It caught many outside observers by surprise because North Korea has its own security headache, a festering standoff with the United States and South Korea over its nuclear program.

Large North Korean troop casualties would be a major political blow for the country's 40-year-old ruler, Kim Jong Un, whose government hasn't formally confirmed the deployment. But experts say Kim may see this as a way to get much needed foreign currency and security support from Russia in return for joining Russia's war against Ukraine.

"Kim Jong Un is taking a big gamble. If there are no large casualty numbers, he will get what he wants to some extent. But things will change a lot if many of his soldiers die in battle," said Ahn Chan-il, a former North Korean army first lieutenant who is now head of the World Institute for North Korean Studies think tank in Seoul.

Ambassadors and defence attaches of NATO members based in Budapest met on Wednesday at the US embassy to discuss Hungary's policy of "economic neutrality", including its ties with Russia and China, the embassy said.

The meeting came a day before Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was due to speak at a security conference in the Belarusian capital Minsk, where other participants include Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been seeking to attract Chinese EV and battery manufacturing plants to Hungary, says his country, a member of NATO and the European Union, does not want to be squeezed into any bloc and wants to keep trading with Russia and China as well as its Western partners.

Orban, whose government has maintained close ties with Moscow during the war in Ukraine despite the EU trying to isolate Russia, has said Budapest will opt for a strategy of "economic neutrality".

The US embassy said Wednesday's meeting discussed "the security aspects" of this policy, with Ambassador David Pressman again criticising the Hungarian government's ties with Russia and China.

"Hungary's newly announced policy of economic neutrality and its growing dependencies on Moscow and Beijing have security implications for the United States and Euro-Atlantic interests. We appreciated the opportunity to discuss Hungary's new policy with our Allies," Pressman said according to a statement.

Orban's chief of staff told a briefing in response to the ambassador's comments that he suggested Pressman "study the U.S.-China trade volumes as those have been growing massively".