Russia Ukraine war latest: Kyiv says North Korean troops using fake IDs have suffered 1,100 casualties in Kursk – UK Times

Volunteers helping to clean up a major oil spill along Russia’s Black Sea coast appealed in a video released on Monday for President Vladimir Putin to urgently send federal aid, saying that they and local authorities were overwhelmed.

The pollution, which has coated sandy beaches at and around Anapa, a popular summer resort, has caused serious problems for seabirds and everything from dolphins to porpoises.

The oil is from two ageing tankers hit by a storm on 15 December. One of the vessels split in half, while the other ran aground.

On Thursday, Putin called the incident an ecological disaster and officials from Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry say over 10,000 people are now involved in the clean-up.

But a group of around 30 local volunteers, who filmed their appeal on a beach strewn with sacks full of polluted sand, told Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin that they believed the scale of the disaster was too big for local authorities to cope and demanded Moscow send urgent help.

“The local authorities do not have the professional resources and technical means to neutralise the consequences of such a large-scale disaster and have been forced to compensate for the lack of manpower by using volunteers with shovels,” a spokesperson for the group said, reading out a list of demands.

He said professional clean-up workers needed to be sent in along with scientists specialising in pollution and veterinarians to treat seabirds. Russia, he said, should also appeal to other countries for help with equipment.

“This is a cry from the soul. Such a catastrophe cannot be defeated with shovels,” a female volunteer added in the same video appeal.

Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that he thought it likely that North Korean soldiers would take part in next year’s Moscow’s Red Square parade to commemorate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

Ukraine says North Korean soldiers have fought on Russia’s side against Ukrainian troops trying to hold territory in Russia’s Kursk region. Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean troops on its soil.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty” during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June.

The pact includes a mutual defence pact for immediate military assistance if either faces armed aggression.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski said on Monday that Kyiv will support necessary allied efforts for stabilisation in Syria and had already made decisions to support its food security.

“We believe it is crucial for the security of the Syrian people and the region as a whole to remove any Russian presence from Syria,” he added on X.

Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that several countries had already offered to host talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald Trump, though he declined to say which.

Trump has said he wants to swiftly end the war in Ukraine, though he has yet to set out publicly how he plans to do so. Putin said on Thursday that he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with Trump and had no conditions for starting talks with the Ukrainian authorities.

But Putin said any talks should take as their starting point a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the early weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented.

Many Ukrainian politicians regard that draft deal as akin to a capitulation which would have neutered Ukraine‘s military and political ambitions and say they do not believe Putin is ready to strike a deal that would be acceptable for Kyiv too.