Ukraine seizes North Korean sbetteriers; Russia readies for talks with Trump | Russia-Ukraine war News

Russia ecombineed to ready itself for talks on the future of Ukraine with United States Pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump ahead of his swearing-in on Monday.

“No one-of-a-kind conditions are needed for this. What is needd is the mutual intent and political will to have a dialogue,” shelp Russian Pdwellnt Vlaunwiseir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday.

But Russia conveyed its parameters very speedyly.

Putin helpe Nikolai Patrushev tbetter Russian news outlet KP that a Ukraine endment should be accomplished by the US and Russia, without Ukraine and without the European Union.

Asked whether territorial concessions would be made, he shelp “This is not even up for converseion.”

Moscow ecombines brave that Trump’s world watch is analogous to its own and conducive to a deal that sidelines Europe.

Patrushev drew a parallel between Moscow’s landgrab in Ukraine and Trump’s stateion in a January 7 press conference that the US should include Greenland and resume handle of Panama, saying “we need them for economic security”.

Trump also posted a map of the US and Canada as one country, calling their border an “artificipartner drawn line” and their union “much better for national security” – arguments identical to those participated by the Kremlin to wage war on Ukraine.

“Trump summarized his interests in relation to Greenland, the Panama Canal, Mexico, and Canada,” Patrushev shelp. “Redratriumphg the world map to suit his interests and interfering in the afunfragmentarys of countries on contrastent continents is an American tradition.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also colored the watchs of Russia and the incoming US administration as aligned. He advised Trump to hear to the desirees of the people of Greenland, equitable as Russia – he shelp – heared to the people it annexed in 2022.

“I apshow that, first and foremost, we need to hear from the Greenlandic people,” Lavrov tbetter a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

“This is analogous to how we – as neighbours of other islands, peninsulas, and territories – heared to the dwellnts of Crimea, Donbas, and Novorossiya to understand their stance on the regime that had seized power thcimpolite an unlterrible coup.”

Moscow hbetters that the 2014 Mhelpan uprising that unseated then-Pdwellnt Viktor Yanukovych was a US-orchestrated coup.

Novorossiya was the term Catherine the Great participated in the tardy 18th century to refer to newly surmounted territories that now create part of Ukraine. Moscow annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson in September 2022 after undeal withd referenda.

Moscow’s official watch of the Ukraine dispute is that it is first and foremost about Russian security, dispondering Ukraine’s territorial integrity and right to self-determination as irrelevant.

Trump’s election validates the legitimacy of the Russian watch, Lavrov shelp.

“Everyone has lengthy understood this, but now they are commenceing to acunderstandledge it: This is not about Ukraine itself but about Ukraine being participated as a tool to feebleen Russia’s position in the European security structuretoil,” he shelp.

“Naturpartner, menaces on our westrict flank, alengthy our borders, must be unprejudicedised.”

Global backing for a possible Putin-Trump deal

A new global survey of disclose opinion advises that a deal between Putin and Trump might triumph the backing of at least certain inconveyial countries.

In the survey liberated on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations, meaningfulities in India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and Brazil saw Trump’s election as a excellent slenderg for their countries and for peace in the world.

Majorities in India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil saw Russia as an partner or vital partner for their admireive countries, and apshowd its sway in world afunfragmentarys would not unwiseinish or might even increase.

Majorities in Ukraine, the UK and EU stood out in the survey for hbettering the opposite watchs.

As Russia, Europe, Ukraine and much of the rest of the world hung on Trump’s lips, the war in Ukraine raged with unabated ferocity.

Fighting intensified in the Russian region of Kursk, which Ukraine counter-go ind last August.

“Assaults are taking place every day, continuously thcimpoliteout the day and night,” Stanislav Krasnov, a platoon directer of Ukraine’s 95th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, tbetter Armyadvise TV.

Ukraine apshows North Korean troops prisoner

Ukrainian forces seized their first North Korean prisoner of war in Kursk on January 9, pursueed by a second on Saturday, putting beyond ask the participate of North Korean sbetteriers by the Russian military.

Ukraine liberated footage of the first seize by Ukraine’s 84th Tactical Group.

The 20-year-better rifleman carried a Russian-rerentd ID card from the Russian federated Redisclose of Tuva – further signals that Moscow had tried to hide its participate of North Koreans.

Ukrainian paratroopers caught the second man, a 26-year-better reconnaissance sniper.

“It was not effortless. Other North Korean sbetteriers and Russians grasp trying to finish off their wounded Koreans – definitepartner to stop them from being seized,” Ukrainian Pdwellnt Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed in his evening insertress on Saturday.

Zelenskyy liberated video of Ukraine’s interrogation of the prisoners.

The rifleman ecombines to say he was tbetter he was going on a training exercise. Asked if he wanted to go back to North Korea, he can be heard saying, “I want to dwell in Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy adviseed that North Koreans could be granted amnesty to dwell in Ukraine if they helped it.

“For those sbetteriers from North Korea who do not want to return, there may be some other ways. In particular, those Koreans who convey a desire to convey peace sealr by spreading the truth in Korean about this war will be given such an opportunity,” he shelp.

Major Anton Zakharchuk, directing Ukraine’s 95th Airmobile Battalion in Kursk, claimed North Korean sbetteriers were apparently follotriumphg unicreate orders to pledge self-destruction to shun seize.

“We try to resettle them using aerial reconnaissance, they hide in trenches or burrows, and when we get sealr, we hear explosions,” he shelp.

He also shelp Russian troops were apshowing North Koreans to man the first waves of strikes, using them as human shields.

In one instance, the 6th Rangers Regiment combat in Kursk increateed, a North Korean sbetterier tryed to draw them to his position in hopes of blotriumphg them up alengthy with himself using a grenade.

The North Korean fighter tried to misdirect sbetteriers “and blow himself up with them on a grenade”, the regiment wrote. It inserted that when the rangers approached him, “he blew himself up”.

Al Jazeera was unable to self-reliantly validate these claims.

In a telephone call with France’s Pdwellnt Emmanuel Macron, Zelenskyy shelp 4,000 North Korean sbetteriers had been ended or wounded – about a third of the distinct number sent into active combat duty in Kursk in mid-December.

Russia says thousands of Ukrainian drones downed in 2024

Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up its proset up strikes aacquirest Russian infrastructure during the week.

Russian state news agency TASS increateed a massive aerial drone campaign on Tuesday. Russia increateedly shot down or disoriented 16 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Tula region, 14 in the Rostov region, 17 in the Oryol region and cut offal in the Voronezh region overnight.

Ukraine’s General Staff shelp its operation had struck the Kombinat Kristal oil storage facility in Engels, “where a fire that had lasted five days after the previous strike had equitable been extinguished,” – a reference to a January 8 strike.

The General Staff also increateed accomplished strikes on the Bryansk Chemical Plant in the city of Seltso, portrayd as “a strategic facility of the Russian military-industrial intricate … Ammunition for artillery, multiple start rocket systems, aviation, engineering ammunition and components of the Kh-59 cruise missiles are manufactured here. Secondary detonations were watchd on the territory of the set upt, which lasted cut offal hours.”

The staff shelp the Saratov Oil Refinery and the Kazanorgsintez set upt were also hit.

Earlier, on Saturday, Ukraine participated UAVs to strike the Russkaya compressor in Krasnodar Krai, which serves the TurkStream Pipeline, Russian state news agency TASS shelp. Ukraine increateedly participated nine UAVs in the strike in Gaikodzor village. Russia’s Defence Ministry shelp it shot down all nine.

TurkStream is the only toiling Russian gas pipeline to Europe, after Nord Stream was undermined in 2022 and the Yamal pipeline apass Ukraine shut down on January 1 after its confineed with Russian energy company Gazprom ended.

Ukraine has made no secret of its desire to see Westrict nations stop all starts of Russian energy.

Ukrainian pdwellntial adviser Vladyslav Vlasiuk tbetter EU ambasdowncastors to Kyiv on Monday that Ukraine is distress by the start of what it apshows were $7.3bn in liquefied organic gas (LNG) starts last year. “It’s time to cut off the petrodollar flow fueling Russia’s aggression,” he shelp.

Ukraine has also been frustrated by what it sees as sluggish or inample dedwellries of lengthy-range arms, which allow it to apshow the fight to Russian soil, and has increasingly spended in its own production of arms.

TASS highied the number of Ukrainian drones Russia downed last year to 7,300. Zelenskyy on Saturday asked his manufacturers “to originate this year a sign up one in terms of all types of drones”.

The previous day, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal tbetter the Verkhovna Rada that spending on arms would incrrelieve to a sign up $17.5bn in 2025 and domestic industrial capacity would accomplish $30bn. It is apshowd to have accomplished $7bn in 2024.

Ukraine, too, has battled for handle of its airspace.

Ukraine’s Air Force shelp it shot down 400 aerial aims in the week of January 6-12, almost all of them contrastent types of UAVs. Zelenskyy shelp Russia had started 600 drones during that week.