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SEOUL: North Korean troops have suffered more than 6,000 casualties fighting for Russia in the war against Ukraine, more than half of the about 11,000 soldiers initially sent to the Kursk region, the British Defense Ministry said in a post on X on Sunday.
MOSCOW: A blast at a factory in the Russian region of Ryazan on Friday killed 11 people and left 130 injured, Russia’s emergencies ministry said on Saturday.
In a statement on Telegram, the ministry said rescuers were continuing to search through rubble at the scene of the blast, 320km (198 miles) southeast of Moscow.
Ryazan region governor Pavel Malkov said on Friday that the incident had been triggered by a fire breaking out inside a workshop at the factory.
There was no cause given for the fire, not was it clear what the factory produced. Ukrainian drones have previously targeted military and economic infrastructure in Ryazan region.
Some Russian media outlets reported that the explosion was caused by gunpowder catching fire.
COPENGAGEN: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Saturday that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has become a “problem,” adding she would try to put pressure on Israel over the Gaza war as her country currently holds the EU presidency.
“Netanyahu is now a problem in himself,” Frederiksen said in an interview with the Jyllands-Posten daily, adding that the Israeli government was going “too far.”
The center right leader slammed the “absolutely appalling and catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza and new settlement project in the occupied West Bank.
“We are one of the countries that wants to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members,” she said.
Frederiksen added that she wanted to consider “political pressure, sanctions, whether against settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole,” referring to trade or research sanctions.
“We are not ruling anything out in advance. Just as with Russia, we are designing the sanctions to target where we believe they will have the greatest effect,” added Frederiksen, whose country is not among those who have said they will recognize the Palestinian state.
The Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Gaza’s Hamas rulers resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,430 Palestinians, mainly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that he plans to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington next week after Trump’s summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin secured no agreement to end the war in Ukraine.
Zelensky said he held a “long and substantive” conversation with Trump on Saturday after the US leader met Putin in Alaska. He thanked Trump for an invitation to meet in person in Washington on Monday and said they would “discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”
Zelensky reiterated the importance of involving Europe.
“It is important that Europeans are involved at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees together with America,” he said. “We also discussed positive signals from the American side regarding participation in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security.”
Zelensky said he spoke to Trump one-on-one and then in a call with other European leaders. In total the conversations lasted an hour and a half.
Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska, but Friday’s summit appeared to end without concrete progress on bringing an end to the war.
Trump said that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” after Putin claimed the two leaders had hammered out an “understanding” on Ukraine and warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress.”
During an interview with Fox News Channel before leaving Alaska, Trump insisted that the onus going forward might be on Zelensky “to get it done,” but said there would also be some involvement from European nations.
Trump did not speak to reporters on his flight back to Washington. When his plane landed, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was on the phone with NATO leaders after a lengthy call with Zelensky.
Trump then disembarked Air Force One without speaking to reporters. He didn’t respond to shouted questions about the phone calls as he climbed into his limousine.
Trump spoke with Zelensky, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Polish President Karol Nawrocki, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta said. She gave no details of the conversation.
There was no immediate comment Saturday from European leaders who, like Zelensky, didn’t have a place at the table at Friday’s summit.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on Russian state television Saturday that a potential trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky has not been raised in US-Russia discussions. “The topic has not been touched upon yet,” Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Russian attacks on Ukraine continued overnight, using one ballistic missile and 85 Shahed drones, 61 of which were shot down, Ukraine’s Air Force said. Front-line areas of Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Chernihiv were attacked.
Russia launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile targeting Ukraine’s territory, Ukraine’s Air Force said on Saturday.
Frontline territories in the Sumy, Donetsk, Chernihiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions were targeted in the overnight strikes, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app. It said its air defense units destroyed 61 of the drones.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily morning report that 139 clashes had taken place on the front line over the past day.
NEW YORK: An off-duty New York Police Department officer fatally shot a man pointing a fake gun at the officer on Friday night on Staten Island, according to law enforcement.
At about 8 p.m., a 911 call came in about a man with a gun at the back of a diner, Assistant Chief Melissa Eger, of the NYPD Patrol Borough of Staten Island, said during a news conference.
An off-duty officer then spotted the same man with what appeared to be a firearm and told another off-duty officer, said Eger.
They told the man to put the firearm down but instead he pointed it at the officers, said Eger, who added that surveillance video captured the events. One officer then fired at the man.
The officers “performed life-saving measures” and then the man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, she said.
“Our officers were confronted with a dangerous and unpredictable situation, and they attempted to de-escalate the situation multiple times,” she said.
An imitation firearm was found at the scene, she said.
The shooting is being investigated.
She said the man has a criminal history, but the details were not immediately clear.
