A high-level delegation from South Korea will brief the North Atlantic Council about North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia on Monday, said Nato on Sunday, after the US expressed grave concern over the possible use of the troops against Ukraine.
Two civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Sunday in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which is split by the frontline and regularly hit by Russian artillery, drones and missiles, said the regional governor.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili called on Sunday for people to take to the streets to protest at the results of Saturday’s disputed parliamentary election, which the electoral commission said the ruling party had won.
South Korean delegation to brief Nato on North Korean troops in Russia
A high-level delegation from South Korea will brief the North Atlantic Council about North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia on Monday, said Nato on Sunday, after the US expressed grave concern over the possible use of the troops against Ukraine.
“Ambassadors from Nato’s Indo-Pacific partners — including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea — have been invited to attend,” added the military alliance. The North Atlantic Council is Nato’s main decision-making body.
Ukrainian military intelligence said on Thursday that about 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were already in Russia, and training was taking place on five military bases.
Speaking on the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny that North Korean troops were in Russia. But he said it was Moscow’s business how to implement a treaty with Pyongyang that includes a mutual defence clause to aid each other against external aggression.
Two civilians killed in Russian attacks in southern Ukraine
Two civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Sunday in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which is split by the frontline and regularly hit by Russian artillery, drones and missiles, said the regional governor.
An elderly man was killed after explosives were dropped on him from a drone and another man was killed by artillery fire, said Governor Oleksandr Prokudin on the Telegram messenger.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia had used more than 1,100 guided aerial bombs, 560 attack drones and about 20 missiles over the past week against Ukraine.
“Russia does not stop in its terror against Ukraine. Daily aggression against our people, our towns and villages. Strikes with various types of weapons,” Zelensky, who urged Kyiv’s allies on Saturday to intensify pressure on Moscow, said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s military said earlier on Sunday that its air defences had shot down 41 of 80 Russian drones launched overnight, adding that the attacks had caused no casualties or damage to critical infrastructure.
Georgian president calls for protests after disputed election
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili called on Sunday for people to take to the streets to protest at the results of Saturday’s disputed parliamentary election, which the electoral commission said the ruling party had won.
The Georgian Dream party clinched nearly 54% of the vote, the commission said, as opposition parties contested the result and vote monitors reported significant violations.
Zourabichvili, a former Georgian Dream ally turned fierce critic of the ruling party, said she did not recognise the results and referred to the vote as a “Russian special operation”. She did not clarify whether she believed Russia had a direct role in the elections.
“It was a total fraud, a total taking away of your votes,” Zourabichvili told reporters, flanked by Georgian opposition party leaders.
Zourabichvili called on Georgians to protest in the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, on Monday evening “to announce to the world that we do not recognise these elections”.
The results, with almost all precincts counted, were a blow for pro-Western Georgians who had cast the election as a choice between a ruling party that has deepened ties with Russia and an opposition aiming to fast-track integration with Europe.
Georgian Dream, now headed for a fourth term in office, will take 89 seats in parliament, one less than it secured in 2020, said the commission, with four pro-Western opposition parties receiving 61 seats in total.
A series of violations were reported on Sunday by three separate monitoring missions, including the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The groups said the alleged violations, including ballot stuffing, bribery, voter intimidation and violence near polling stations, could have affected the result but stopped short of calling the outcome fraudulent.
“We continue to express deep concerns about the democratic backsliding in Georgia,” said Antonio Lopez-Isturiz White, head of the European Parliament’s delegation to the OSCE mission.
“The conduct of yesterday’s election is unfortunately evidence to that effect,” he told reporters.
In a post on X, European Council President Charles Michel called on Georgia’s electoral commission to fully investigate the reported violations.
The electoral commission did not respond immediately to requests for comment, but on Saturday hailed a free and fair election. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the observers’ conclusions showed there was no doubt about the election’s legitimacy.
Georgia’s four pro-Western opposition parties said they did not recognise the results, and some members pledged to boycott the new parliament and called for supporters to take to the streets.
Coalition for Change opposition party leader Nika Gvaramia called the vote “a constitutional coup” and a “usurpation of power”. His party cited two exit polls that showed the opposition winning a majority of seats in parliament.
The leader of the United National Movement opposition party, Tina Bokuchava, said the election had been “stolen”, calling for protests.
Georgian Dream’s reclusive billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, who campaigned heavily on keeping Georgia out of the war in Ukraine, hailed the party’s victory on Saturday night after its strongest performance since 2012.
Electoral commission data showed it winning by huge margins of up to 90% in some rural areas, though it underperformed in bigger cities.
Georgian Dream says it wants Georgia to join the European Union, though Brussels says the Caucasus country’s membership application is frozen over what it says are the party’s authoritarian tendencies.
It has pushed through a law on “foreign agents” and another curbing LGBT rights, both of which drew strong criticism from Western countries but were praised by some Russian officials.
Lithuania holds run-off election with opposition seeking to cement win
Lithuanians were voting on Sunday in a parliamentary election dominated by concerns over the cost of living and potential threats from neighbouring Russia, with the opposition Social Democrats ahead after the first round.
The Baltic country of 2.9 million people has a hybrid voting system in which half of parliament is elected by popular vote. The remainder is decided in district-based run-off votes between the top two candidates, a process that favours the larger parties.
If the left-leaning Social Democrats (SD) succeed in forming a government, they are expected to maintain Lithuania’s hawkish stance against Russia and hefty defence spending.
Lithuania will spend about 3% of GDP on its armed forces this year, according to Nato estimates, making it the military alliance’s sixth-biggest spender.
The SD won 20% of the vote in the first round on 14 October, making it the largest party ahead of the ruling Homeland Union with 18% and the anti-establishment Nemunas Dawn with 15%.
Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte’s centre-right three-party coalition has seen its popularity eroded by inflation that topped 20% two years ago, deteriorating public services and a widening rich-poor gap.
After the first round, SD leader Vilija Blinkeviciute said she was already in talks about forming a majority coalition government with two other parties — For Lithuania, and the Farmers and Greens Union.
Putin again warns West about helping Ukraine to strike deep in Russia
President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia’s defence ministry was working on different ways to respond if the US and its Nato allies helped Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with long-range Western missiles.
The 2½-year-old Ukraine war has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War, and Russian officials say the war is now entering its most dangerous phase.
Russia has been signalling to the US and its allies for weeks that if they permit Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western-supplied missiles, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.
Putin said on 12 September that Western approval for such a step would mean “the direct involvement of Nato countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine” because Nato military infrastructure and personnel would have to be involved in the targeting and firing of the missiles.
Putin said that it was too early to say exactly how Russia would react to such a move but that Moscow would have to respond accordingly and different options were being examined.
“[The Russian defence ministry] is thinking about how to respond to the possible long-range strikes on Russian territory, it will offer a range of responses,” Putin told Russian state TV’s top Kremlin reporter, Pavel Zarubin.
With Russia advancing at the fastest rate in eastern Ukraine since the first months of the invasion, Zelensky has been pleading with the West to allow Kyiv to fire deep into Russia with Western missiles.
The United States has not said publicly if it will allow Ukraine to strike Russia, but some US officials are deeply sceptical that doing so would make a significant difference in the war.
Ukrainian forces already strike deep into Russia regularly with long-range drones.
Russia downs 51 Ukrainian drones
Russia’s air defence units destroyed or intercepted 51 Ukrainian drones overnight, said the Russian defence ministry early on Sunday.
Eighteen of the drones were intercepted over the Tambov region, some 450km southeast of Moscow, said the ministry on the Telegram messaging app. Another 16 were destroyed over the Belgorod border region and the rest over the Voronezh, Oryol and Kursk regions in Russia’s south.
One woman was moderately injured as a result of the drone attack on Belgorod, said regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov on Telegram. He added that a few cars were also damaged.
Tambov Governor Maxim Yegorov said a Ukrainian drone fell onto the Michurinsky district, sparking a short-lived fire but causing no injuries or material damage.
Russian forces advance toward Ukraine’s strategic Pokrovsk
Russian forces advanced further into several eastern Ukrainian towns, bringing them closer to capturing the strategic city of Pokrovsk, said Russian and Ukrainian bloggers.
“The enemy advanced in Selydove,” DeepState, a group with close links to the Ukrainian army that analyses combat footage, wrote on the Telegram messaging app late on Saturday. It posted a map indicating Russian troops in the town’s southeast.
Russian forces have been storming the coal mining town of Selydove in Ukraine’s Donetsk region for the past week. Capturing it would pave the way for a Russian advance on the logistical hub of Pokrovsk 20km northwest.
The Russian news outlet Shot said on Telegram that Moscow’s troops controlled 80% of Selydove.
The Russian-installed head of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said Russian forces had hoisted their unit’s flag on the roof of one of the buildings in the town of Hirnyk, some 14km south of Selydove, reported Russia’s state news agency RIA.
Russian military bloggers also reported that Russian forces were close to taking over the town of Kurakhove, just southwest of Hirnyk.
Ukraine’s armed forces said on Saturday that Kyiv forces had repelled 36 Russian attacks along the Pokrovsk frontline in the previous day, including in the area of Selydove, while several battles were still ongoing. DM