Ukraine updates: South Korea mulls sending team to Ukraine

Ukrainian troops training in Germany have started working with dogs at a number of facilities around the country, including one in Bitburg, in recent months. 

In Bitburg, the primary focus is on training protection dogs or attack dogs to assist soldiers in urban warfare. 

All the dogs being trained hail from Ukraine, some were already partly trained while others came directly from breeders. According to the instructors, some of the dogs have responded better to Ukrainian language commands and others to German.

The head of the canine training team in Bitburg told the DPA news agency that the animals' keen sense of smell and their "strong will to bond with a partner" made them highly valuable in combat scenarios and made soldiers more safe. 

The training courses last several months but are described by German military officials as "compact" by typical standards. 

Ukraine had requested the assistance not just for military personnel but also for some other security personnel. The human participants in the course are also taught in areas like canine first aid. 

In total, some 17,000 Ukrainian soldiers or security personnel have received training in Germany since Russia's invasion.

The United States has introduced fresh sanctions on some 400 entities and individuals from over a dozen different countries, in an effort to target those circumventing the sanctions imposed on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.

Around 274 targets in China, Hong Kong, India, Russia, the UAE, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia and Switzerland were sanctioned by the US Treasury. The State Department meanwhile targeted over 120 and the Commerce Department added 40 companies and research institutions to a trade restriction list.

"The United States and our allies will continue to take decisive action across the globe to stop the flow of critical tools and technologies that Russia needs to wage its illegal and immoral war against Ukraine," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in the statement.

The Reuters news agency cited an unnamed senior administration official as saying the sanctions were meant to signal that Washnigton would take legal action against Indian companies if progress is not made through communication.

Ukraine has so far received only 10% of Congress-approved US military aid, Ukrainian President Volodymry Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Nordic journalists in a video recorded on Tuesday and published the next day, Zelenskyy also said NATO has yet to deliver all of the air defense systems it had pledged to supply Kyiv with by the beginning of September.

"You do your job. You count on reserves, you count on special brigades, you count on such equipment. And if you get 10% of all the package [that] has already been voted on... it's not funny," Zelenskyy said.

He added that the delay was not due to funding issues.

"It's always the question of bureaucracy or logistics, ideas or skepticism... This we will give you, this — will not," he said.

Russia has accused Britain of delivering arms to Ukraine using a Black Sea grain corridor, after the UK alleged disruptions to crucial grain supplies due to Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's allegations that Moscow was damaging global food security with such strikes were wide of the mark.

"Such baseless yet thunderous outrage from London once again confirms just the opposite: the direct involvement of the UK in supplying arms to the [Kyiv] regime using the Black Sea sea corridor," she told a press briefing.

She cited a recent video concerning Ukraine's port of Yuzhny in the Odesa region as evidence.

Last week, both Starmer and the UN said that Russian attacks on Ukraine's Black Sea ports were damaging grain vessels, with Starmer particularly blaming the attacks for delays in vital aid to the Palestinians.

Ukraine is a major exporter of grain to the global market.

Police in Germany arrested a man suspected of selling technical equipment to Russia in spite of sanctions that were introduced following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

German police raided six different properties nationwide on Wednesday as part of its investigation. The man was arrested in the southern city of Nuremberg in Bavaria.

Authorities say they have seized extensive evidence.

The suspect had allegedly procured satellite antennas and sonars for deep-sea use, prosecutors said, using his Germany-based company. The devices are believed to have been taken into Russia.

He is also suspected of having worked within an international network.

The 55-year-old holds both Russian and Kyrgyz citizenships. He is accused of violating Germany's Foreign Trade and Payments Act.

Sanctions on Russia include restricting exports of sensitive electronics or other goods which could be used for military purposes.

Moscow said on Wednesday it had captured the village of Kruhliakivka, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where it has been pressing on an offensive for months.

The village lies some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the embattled Ukrainian stronghold of Kupiansk, which Moscow has been trying to surround.

Russian army units "liberated the settlement of Krugliakovka in the Kharkiv region," the Defense Ministry said in a daily briefing, using a Russian name for the village.

Ukraine and Russia are in the early stages of negotiating a potential agreement to halt airstrikes on energy facilities in both countries as we approach a third winter of war in Ukraine, the British newspaper Financial Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

The talks had been derailed by Ukraine's incursion into Kursk in the summer, the unnamed sources told FT.

"There are very early talks about potentially restarting something," the FT cited a diplomat who the newspaper said was briefed on the negotiations as saying. "There's now talks on the energy facilities."

However, the newspaper also cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying there was a lot of fake news, even in the most reputable media, that "has nothing to do with reality," when asked about the reports.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko in Beijing on Wednesday, with Ukraine on the agenda.

Wang described China's relationship with Russia as "inevitable and strong," emphasizing that it is "not affected by the changing international situation and is not directed at or influenced by third parties."

China regards both Russia and North Korea, which has recently faced criticism for reportedly sending troops to support Russia in Ukraine, as close allies.

South Korea aims to send a team to Ukraine to monitor and analyze the activities of the North Korean soldiers that have been deployed in Russia, a presidential official said on Wednesday.

This comes after NATO and Washington said that some high-ranking North Korean military officials and troops have been sent to Russia.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Seoul and its allies estimated at least 11,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia with more than 3,000 of them now deployed close to the front lines in Ukraine.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has described this military cooperation between Russia and North Korea as "illegal" and a "significant security threat to the international community."

North Korea's and Russia's top diplomats were engaged in "strategic" talks in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian authorities said.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui was on an official visit to Moscow to hold "strategic consultations" with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"We will inform you additionally about the details," Zakharova said.

The visit comes amid growing Western concern over North Korea's support for Russia in Ukraine, with the US on Monday saying that 10,000 North Korean troops were training in Russia and could be deployed to Ukraine within weeks.

mfi/lo (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)