Latest news on the war in Ukraine: Putin makes absurd claim that the new military pact with North Korea and Kim is “peaceful”.

The European Commission will impose tariffs on Ukrainian egg imports within the next two weeks once a previously agreed annual threshold for such imports is reached, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The Commission took the same decision on Tuesday regarding oat imports from Ukraine.

After the Russian invasion in 2022, the country benefited from a special mechanism to promote trade flows with the EU, its main export market. However, the EU set maximum import volumes after farmers’ protests across the bloc called cheap Ukrainian imports unfair competition. (

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Vietnam early today to hold talks with the country’s communist leaders following the signing of a defense pact with North Korea, the last stop on his Asian tour of both countries.

After China and North Korea, this is Putin’s third foreign visit since he took office as president in March.

Putin’s plane landed at Hanoi airport, where he was received on a red carpet by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha and senior party diplomat Le Hoai Trung.

Putin will meet Communist Party Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong, President To Lam and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. Although both North Korea and Russia are internationally isolated, Vietnam has built cautious alliances with the United States and the European Union.

“President Putin’s visit to North Korea and Vietnam is intended to show that the West’s attempts to isolate Russia are not working and that Russia has partners in Asia,” said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam security expert at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

However, ahead of his visit, Putin thanked the communist-ruled Southeast Asian country for supporting a “pragmatic path to resolving the crisis” in Ukraine.

The new defense pact between Russia and North Korea shows an increasing rapprochement between the authoritarian powers and underlines the importance of democracies forming a united front, said the NATO chief.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed an agreement with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un that includes a mutual defense commitment – a move that fundamentally changes Moscow’s policy toward Pyongyang.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said North Korea had supplied Russia with “an enormous amount of ammunition,” while both China and Iran were providing military support to Moscow in its war against Ukraine.

“We need to be aware that authoritarian powers are becoming increasingly aligned. They are supporting each other in ways we have never seen before,” he said at a panel discussion during an official visit to Ottawa.

“As they grow ever closer together – authoritarian regimes like North Korea and China, Iran and Russia – then it is all the more important that we come together as countries that believe in freedom and democracy,” he said.

Given the growing closeness between Russia and other Asian states, it is even more important that NATO works with its allies in the Asia-Pacific region, he said, adding that this is also why the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea have been invited to a NATO summit in Washington next month.

Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin reached a new high point in their bilateral relations when they signed a new agreement on “immediate military assistance” in the event of war during the Russian president’s visit to North Korea.

The new agreement between Russia and North Korea, which the heads of state agreed at a summit in Pyongyang, obliges both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military support in the event of war, North Korean state media said today.

In the new agreement, Russia and North Korea agreed to support each other in the areas of security, trade, investment, culture and humanitarian aid. Foreign observers said it could be the strongest bond between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War.

The North’s official Korean News Agency reported the text of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement today. The agency said Article 4 of the agreement states that if one of the countries is attacked and forced into a state of war, the other country must use “all means at its disposal without delay” to provide “military and other assistance.”

A fire caused by a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil terminal in southern Russia has been raging for more than a day and a half despite the efforts of firefighters, the regional governor said on Wednesday.

Several oil storage tanks in the city of Azov caught fire early Tuesday morning following a drone attack. According to a Ukrainian intelligence source, the attack was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Vasily Golubev, governor of the Rostov region, wrote on Telegram that rescue workers had not managed to extinguish the flames by Tuesday afternoon because the second storage tank had lost pressure.

Azov has two oil product terminals, DonTerminal and Azovproduct, which handled a total of about 220,000 tons of fuel for export in the period January-May 2024.

Ukraine has often stated that attacks on Russia’s energy, military and transport infrastructure would undermine Moscow’s war effort.

A court in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok on Wednesday sentenced a US soldier arrested earlier this year to three years and nine months in prison for theft and death threats, Russian news reports said.

Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, flew to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok to meet his girlfriend and was arrested after she accused him of stealing from her, according to U.S. and Russian authorities.

Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti reported from the courtroom of the Pervomaisky District Court in Vladivostok that the judge also ordered Black to pay 10,000 rubles ($115) in damages. Prosecutors had demanded a prison sentence of four years and eight months for Black.

Ukrainian authorities have set up a national registry to document cases of sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by Russian forces, a senior prosecutor told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Viktoriia Litvinova, the country’s deputy prosecutor general, said the register was created as part of a pilot project that had already seen five people convicted in absentia. She declined to comment on the details of the cases.

“Before, we had to visit the areas where hostilities occur ourselves,” she said. “But now people – people who have experienced sexual abuse – come to us for information.”

In a White House briefing, spokesman John Kirby said the United States was “satisfied” with its “strategic deterrence posture.”

Asked about Mr Stoltenberg’s comments, Mr Kirby said: “We do not talk in detail about the nuclear posture – and I am certainly not going to start from here on the podium.”

On Tuesday, a university professor in Estonia was sentenced to prison. He was found guilty of spying for Russian military intelligence. The espionage campaign was part of a campaign of sabotage, electronic warfare and intelligence gathering for which Estonian authorities blame Moscow.

Russian citizen Vyacheslav Morozov, who taught at Estonia’s most prestigious university, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for undermining the Baltic state’s security during the 14 years he worked in the country until his arrest in January.

Estonian authorities approach the Russian threat with extreme skepticism and have convicted several people of spying for Russia in recent years. The Harju District Court in the Estonian capital said Morozov had collected information on Estonia’s defense and security policy and the people and infrastructure associated with it.

A network of individuals and companies supporting the sanctioned president of the Serb-ruled part of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, is facing a new round of sanctions.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Tuesday named two individuals and seven companies that generate income for Dodik and his family, including his son Igor Dodik.

According to the Finance Ministry, Dodik used his presidency to award government contracts to a network of private companies that he and his son oversee.