Latest news on the war in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin lands in North Korea and “praises dictator Kim Jong-un”

Anastasiia Motychak didn’t know why Irina, the head of her camp in Russian-occupied Crimea, had just punched her in the face. All she knew was that she missed her mom and wanted to go home to the Ukrainian city of Kherson.

Two months had passed since the then 15-year-old was put on a bus and taken from the then Russian-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine to a two-week “holiday camp” in Yevpatoria in western Crimea. Kherson was no place for a child, the Russian soldiers had warned.

Days later, Ukrainian troops liberated the city. But Anastasiia was now 240 kilometers away in occupied territory and sleeping in a room with barred windows.

President Vladimir Putin is currently in North Korea for a summit with its leader Kim Jong Un as the two countries seek to deepen their cooperation.

The visit comes amid growing concerns over a deal in which Pyongyang will supply Moscow with much-needed munitions for Russia’s war in Ukraine in return for economic aid and technology to bolster the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Despite often overlapping interests, relations between Russia and North Korea have experienced ups and downs. Read more here:

An Estonian court has sentenced a former professor of political theory at the University of Tartu and Russian citizen to six years and three months in prison for espionage, the country’s public broadcaster ERR reported.

Viacheslav Morozov was arrested in January and accused of collecting information on Estonia’s domestic, defence and security policies, as well as on related individuals and infrastructure, ERR said.

He was also accused of disseminating information about Estonia’s political situation, its relations with allies, its integration and social cohesion.

Ukraine is investigating the alleged beheading of one of its soldiers by Russian forces in an occupied part of the eastern Donetsk region, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said on Tuesday.

Russia has repeatedly denied that its forces committed war crimes during the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has not commented on the allegations.

“The beheading of a Ukrainian defender was registered in the Donetsk region,” wrote Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin on the social media platform X.

In a statement, the Prosecutor General’s Office said that during an aerial reconnaissance of the area, the severed head of a Ukrainian soldier was discovered on a damaged armored vehicle.

Russia is increasingly resorting to blackmail and financial incentives to hire Germans as spies, according to German domestic intelligence, after European intelligence services suffered a major blow with the expulsion of around 600 Russian diplomats.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) stated that Russian secret services have invested large sums in recruiting agents in Germany, despite Western attempts to restrict their operations since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia is working hard to compensate for the German government’s reduction in the number of Russian agents in Germany,” said BfV chief Thomas Haldenwang at a press conference to present the agency’s annual report.

Kim Jong Un suddenly forming friendships with the world’s most powerful leaders is nothing new. There were the memorable moments with Donald Trump after the exchange of letters, which the US president described as “beautiful”, followed by tender moments at meetings that were supposed to reshape geopolitics.

Not much has come out of the mutual admiration talks, other than a temporary halt to North Korea’s ballistic missile construction and deep concern among American allies in the region that Trump might make a deal with Kim that would put their security at risk. To much relief, however, that deal did not end up happening.

Now Kim has a new best friend, Vladimir Putin, and that poses a clear and present danger to the West and its allies. North Korea is already stepping in to help Russia supply its depleted ammunition and missile stockpiles for the Ukraine war.

Moscow is accused of circumventing international sanctions to help Kim build his military arsenal and support his nuclear program.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has left the eastern Russian region of Sakha for North Korea after stopping there for a few hours on his way to his summit with Kim Jong Un, regional news channel 14news reported on Tuesday.