News on the war in Russia and Ukraine: Kiev claims Russian soldiers ‘beheaded’ a soldier as Putin begins his visit to North Korea

The bromance between Putin and Kim is a dangerous liaison, not only for South Korea, Japan and other regional powers, but also for the rest of the world and the protagonists themselves. After all, a thermonuclear war means mutual destruction.

Both are heavily sanctioned international pariahs, both enemies of the West. They have a difficult relationship with China, which, due to its enormous economic power, military strength and superpower status, is more of a dominant neighbor than a reliable friend.

Paradoxically, Putin being pushed toward Kim is a sign of weakness. Although the US and the rest of the West are concerned about Russia’s relations with China, Beijing’s support for the war in Ukraine appears to be both conditional and limited. President Xi has provided vital financial aid and diplomatic support, bought Russian energy and raw materials, and shipped nonmilitary and dual-use goods to Moscow, but probably not much in the way of overtly offensive equipment.

To read Editorial from the Independent Here:

Ukrainian air defense systems destroyed 19 of 21 drones that Russia fired at several regions overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said this morning.

In the airstrike on Ukrainian cities, especially the western region of Lviv, one man was injured and a multi-storey residential building was damaged, said the mayor of the city of Lviv.

The drone attack in the village of Malekhiv in the Lviv district also damaged windows in numerous other residential buildings, said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.

No major casualties or damage were initially reported from other parts of Ukraine.

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 yesterday.

“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.

It was said that the Ukrainian military received information on Monday that members of a unit of the Russian Armed Forces in the Volnova district of the Donetsk region had ordered their subordinates not to capture and behead Ukrainian soldiers.

Kostin says Ukraine has documented nearly 130,000 war crimes committed by Russia.

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.

A fire has been raging for more than 24 hours at an oil depot in the city of Azov in the southern Russian region of Rostov, local emergency services said this morning.

Several oil storage tanks caught fire yesterday morning following a drone attack that, according to a Ukrainian intelligence source, was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

“The fire in Azov district was localized at 3,200 square meters at 5:30 a.m. (02:00 GMT),” the rescue service said on the Telegram channel.

The source told Reuters that the attack hit the Azovskaya and Azovnefteprodukt depots, which house a total of 22 fuel tanks.

Kyiv has often stressed that attacks on Russian energy, military and transport infrastructure would undermine Moscow’s military efforts.

The city of Azov is located on the Don River and is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the Sea of ​​Azov.

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 replenish Russia’s depleted ammunition and missile stockpiles for the Ukraine war. Moscow is accused of circumventing international sanctions to help Kim build up his military arsenal, and is also planning to support his nuclear program.

Read Kim Sengupta’s report here:

Russia is discussing the issue of stationing long-range weapons with its closest partners, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Russian news agency TASS.

In an interview with TASS, he said that Moscow has “closest partners” in both Asia and Latin America with whom “the security situation is being worked out in substance and not just at the level of exchanging assessments.”

“This is nothing new,” TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying. “The issue (the deployment of long-range weapons) is being discussed … with a number of our partners.”

Ryabkov declined to name names and said the talks were taking place “with full respect” for the countries’ obligations under international treaties, including those to which Russia is not a party.

At least one person was injured in a Russian drone attack on the western Ukrainian region of Lviv on the border with NATO member Poland, the mayor of the city of Lviv said today. A multi-storey building was also damaged in the attack, he added.

The drone attack in the village of Malekhiv in the Lviv district also damaged numerous windows in other residential buildings, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote on his official Telegram channel.

A 70-year-old man was hospitalized in moderate condition, Mr Sadovyi added.

The city of Lviv is the administrative center of the Lviv region in western Ukraine.

The Hungarian Prime Minister has declared that he supports outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as the next NATO Secretary General.

If Rutte is elected as the alliance’s 13th Secretary General, he would be the fourth Dutchman to hold the post. Now he just needs to secure the support of Romania, whose President Klaus Iohannis is also seeking the post.

Hungary’s support followed a meeting between Orbán and Stoltenberg last week, during which both sides agreed that Hungary would not block NATO decisions to support Ukraine, but would not participate in them.

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un were seen awkwardly debating who would get into the car first during the Russian dictator’s visit to North Korea.

The Russian President arrived in the North Korean capital Pyongyang for his first official visit in 24 years and was met at the airport by his closest ally Kim.

After greeting Putin, the two heads of state got into an unpleasant argument about who should get into the car first.

Putin is continually seeking to repair relations with Pyongyang in order to restore his country’s influence and rebuild its Soviet-era alliances.

The Kremlin announced that after North Korea, Putin would also visit Vietnam for talks that would focus on trade issues.