Ukraine-Russia war live: Nato chief says North Korean troops in Kursk as Putin issues long-range arms warning

Russian forces are making swift and “significant tactical advances” into the eastern Ukrainian city of Selydove, war monitors have said.

Open source data suggests Russian forces advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022, despite Ukraine taking a part of Russia’s Kursk region.

Tom Watling reports:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said that a full withdrawal of Russian troops, and not just peace talks, were essential to ending his country’s more than 2-1/2-year-old war against Moscow.

The chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, was addressing an international meeting devoted to implementing a peace plan, one of several gatherings staged as a follow-up to last June’s world “peace summit” hosted by Switzerland.

“Don’t expect this war to end when the warring sides begin to talk to each other,” Yermak told the gathering, according to the president’s website.

“Don’t be deceived. This war will end when the last soldier of the occupying army returns home.”

583 children were killed, two of them within the past day, reported the Prosecutor General’s Office on Telegram.

One child was killed in Kyiv and one in Dnipro in overnight airstrikes.

“As of the morning of October 26, 2024, according to official information from juvenile prosecutors, 583 children were killed and more than 1,655 sustained injuries of varying severity.

“Children were most affected in the following regions: Donetsk region - 595, Kharkiv region - 454, Dnipropetrovsk region - 183, Kherson region - 181, Kyiv region - 133, Zaporizhzhia region - 145,” the report says.

In total, more than 2,238 children have been affected by the war.

Russian forces thwarted an attempt at another cross-border incursion by Ukraine into southwestern Russia, a local official reported on Sunday.

It came months after Kyiv staged a bold assault on its nuclear-armed enemy that Moscow is still struggling to halt.

An “armed group” sought on Sunday to breach the border between Ukraine and Russia’s Bryansk region, its governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, said but was beaten back.

Mr Bogomaz did not clarify whether Ukrainian soldiers carried out the alleged attack, but claimed on Sunday evening that the situation was “stable and under control” by the Russian military.

A high-level delegation from South Korea will brief the North Atlantic Council about North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia on Monday, NATO said on Sunday.

“Ambassadors from NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea Ãhave been invited to attend,” the military alliance added. The North Atlantic Council is NATO’s main decision-making body.

Ukrainian military intelligence said on Thursday that about 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were already in Russia, and training was taking place on five military bases.

Speaking on the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny that North Korean troops were in Russia. But he said it was Moscow’s business how to implement a treaty with Pyongyang that includes a mutual defence clause to aid each other against external aggression.

Ukrainian forces have reported a “tense frontline” as Russian forces try to break through their defence with as many as 84 battles being fought on Sunday.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine posting to Facebook, said: “The situation on the frontline remains tense.

“The enemy, despite the significant losses inflicted to him by our defenders, continues to try to break through the defence of Ukrainian troops.”

They added: “The enemy made aviation strikes in the areas of Stepnogo, Bilovodiv, Basivka and Junakivka, which are in Sumy region, dropping a total of 12 aviation bombs.

“The enemy struck and on his territory, according to the available information, for today the Russians have carried out 15 air strikes on the Kursk region - using 18 air bombs.

“Today in the Kharkiv direction Russian occupiers twice stormed the defensive borders of the Ukrainian army in the Vovchansk district, our defenders repelled the attacks of the Russians.”

Two civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Sunday in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which is split by the front line and regularly hit by Russian artillery, drones and missiles, the regional governor said.

An elderly man was killed after explosives were dropped on him from a drone and another man was killed by artillery fire, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messenger.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday Russia had used more than 1,100 guided aerial bombs, 560 attack drones and about 20 missiles over the past week against Ukraine.

“Russia does not stop in its terror against Ukraine. Daily aggression against our people, our towns and villages. Strikes with various types of weapons,” Zelenskiy, who urged Kyiv’s allies on Saturday to intensify pressure on Moscow, said on Telegram.

People living in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Sumy, Kharkiv and Khmelnytskyi have faced power outages over the past 24 hours after intense Russian bombardments.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry reported that a substation in Khmelnytskyi had been shut down during an air raid, resulting in a blackout for residents and industry.

Another Russian attack on a substation in Dnipropetrovsk resulted in equipment being switched off, causing a power outage for household consumers and a water utility.

The power supply has since been restored.

Overhead lines went out of service in Donetsk after fighting cut power to a substation.

Substations, household consumers, energy facilities and local industry were cut off from the power grid during a Russian drone attack on Sumy Oblast. The power supply has been restored.

The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office has revealed the damage of strikes on a Ukrainian village.

“The investigation revealed that on October 26 at approximately 9pm, Russian troops conducted an air strike on the village of Malynivka in the Chuhuiv district.

“The storage facilities of the farm sustained damage.

“There were no casualties.

“Additionally, yesterday at approximately 10pm the Russian military shelled the village of Kruhliakivka in the Kupiansk district with artillery. A 76-year-old woman was injured, and residential buildings were damaged,” the statement says.

Russian troops repelled eight new counterattacks by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Sunday.

News agency Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.