Zelensky warns of global instability after North Korean troop clash; US polling sites evacuated after fake 'Russian' bomb threats

At least two polling sites in the US election battleground state of Georgia were briefly evacuated on Tuesday after fake bomb threats that election officials in the state blamed on Russian agents.

The European Union’s likely new energy commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, wants to accelerate the end of the bloc’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, he told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday.

Clashes with North Korean troops increase global instability - Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday the Ukrainian military’s first clashes with North Korean troops had opened the way to more instability in the world.

“The first battles with North Korean soldiers have opened a new chapter of instability in the world,” said Zelensky in his nightly video address.

In an interview with South Korean television, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov also confirmed an armed engagement had taken place with North Korean troops.

Fake bomb threats linked to Russia briefly close US polling sites

At least two polling sites in the US election battleground state of Georgia were briefly evacuated on Tuesday after fake bomb threats that election officials in the state blamed on Russian agents.

The threats, which were deemed to be non-credible, caused two polling locations in Fulton County, Georgia, to be evacuated. Both reopened after about 30 minutes, said officials, and the county was seeking a court order to extend the location’s voting hours past the statewide 7pm deadline.

Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Russian interference was behind the Election Day bomb hoaxes.

“They’re up to mischief, it seems. They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and if they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory,” Raffensperger told reporters.

The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, the FBI said it was aware of non-credible bomb threats to polling locations in several states, with many of them originating from Russian email domains.

Georgia alone received more than two dozen phoney bomb threats on Election Day, most of which occurred in Fulton County, said an FBI official.

A senior official in Raffensperger’s office, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said the Georgia bomb hoaxes were sent from email addresses that had been used by Russians trying to interfere in previous US elections.

The threats were sent to US media and the two polling locations, the official said. “It’s a likelihood it’s Russia,” said the official.

Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump were locked in a tight race to win the White House.

The phoney bomb threats mark the latest in a string of examples of alleged interference by the Russians in the 2024 election.

On 1 November, US intelligence officials warned that Russian actors had manufactured a video that falsely depicted Haitians illegally casting ballots in Georgia. Intelligence officials also found that the Russians created a separate phoney video which falsely accused someone associated with the Harris presidential ticket of taking a bribe from an entertainer.

US intelligence officials have also accused Russia of interfering in previous US presidential elections, especially the 2016 race which Trump won against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Prospective EU energy boss wants to end dependence on Russian gas imports

The European Union’s likely new energy commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, wants to accelerate the end of the bloc’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, he told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday.

“In my first 100 days, I will present a plan on how to speed up ending our reliance on Russian gas before 2027,” he said.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has tasked Jorgensen with lowering energy prices to try to restore Europe’s industrial competitiveness, decarbonise the economy and end the bloc’s remaining Russian energy imports.

He is expected to be confirmed in his new post in the coming weeks.

“We do have a challenge, our industry is suffering. They are paying two or three times as much for energy as in the US and China … ordinary people are struggling to pay their bills,” Jorgensen said, adding it was largely due to the war in Ukraine.

He said the EU needed to deploy more renewable energy, which would require extending grids, boosting digitalisation and new storage technology, and faster permitting.

To help decarbonise, Jorgensen also said nuclear energy was essential.

The EU set itself a non-binding goal to end Russian gas imports by 2027 after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

However, some member states have done little to diversify and Russian gas imports rose last year.

“We used to get 45% of our gas from Russia, now we are down to 18% but 18% is still too much; we need to be 100% independent of Russian fuel,” said Jorgensen.

The EU banned imports of Russian oil with a few exceptions in 2022 but stopped short of placing any restrictions on gas. In June, countries took a first step and banned Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) trans-shipments through European ports.

While some member states seek tighter measures, Russia-friendly Hungary is negotiating with Russia’s Gazprom to increase flows via the TurkStream pipeline in 2025.

Poland aims to ramp up ammunition production 

Poland wants to ramp up its production of 155 mm artillery rounds in the hope of ensuring sufficient supplies if Russia attacked Nato, a senior official has said.

Some Nato officials say the Kremlin might be ready militarily to attack Nato countries in five to eight years’ time, once it has rebuilt its forces after the war in Ukraine. Moscow has regularly dismissed Western suggestions that it might consider an attack on Nato.

“Our ambition ... is to have the ability to fill up Polish warehouses in parallel to achieving a full, independent capacity to produce ammunition in Poland, within five to eight years,” Marcin Idzik, board member of the state-owned Polish Armaments Group (PGZ), told Reuters.

Demand for 155 mm artillery rounds has soared in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Allies’ supplies for their own defence have been run down as they have rushed shells to Kyiv.

Like many of its allies, Poland has sent some of its own stock of 155s to Ukraine. However, it lacks the capacity to produce the rounds from scratch and, instead, is assembling them from purchased components.

Idzik said PGZ still needed 24 months to launch production of all the necessary parts and aimed to be able to turn out about 100,000 per year.

Russian tank factory employee jailed for 16 years in treason case

An engineer at a factory that makes tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine was jailed for 16 years on Tuesday after being convicted of committing state treason by passing military secrets to Kyiv, weeks after his wife received a similar sentence.

The court in Sverdlovsk region said Danil Mukhametov, who worked at the Uralvagonzavod tank factory, had partially admitted his guilt after being accused of passing unspecified technical military information to Ukraine’s intelligence services.

The court released a photograph of Mukhametov (32) listening in a glass courtroom cage as the judge read out his sentence, which he will serve in a maximum-security penal colony.

His wife Viktoria, who worked at the same tank factory, Russia’s largest, was handed a 12½-year sentence last month after being convicted of selling technical blueprints to Ukrainian officials for 100,000 roubles or just over $1,000.

Governor of key Russian region hit by Ukraine drones resigns

President Vladimir Putin accepted the sudden resignation on Monday of one of Russia’s longest-serving governors who headed the Rostov region that has been plagued by Ukrainian drones and where the Wagner Group forces started a short-lived mutiny.

The Rostov region, about 1,000km south of Moscow, borders Ukraine. Kyiv, which has launched a series of drone attacks on oil depots there, says Rostov is key in storing petroleum products for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

Putin accepted the resignation of Rostov’s governor Vasily Golubev “at his own request”, said the Kremlin in a statement on its website.

Golubev, who was in charge of the region since 2010, making him one of the three longest-serving Russian governors at present, said in a post on his Telegram messaging app that he decided to resign “due to a transfer to another job”.

He did not provide further detail. The Tass state news agency reported that Golubev’s press service denied Russian Telegram reports that security services searched Golubev’s office after the resignation. DM