Russia-North Korea military ties deepen as Ukraine seeks NATO membership

On Friday, Russia's defence minister Andrei Belousov sat down with North Korea's Kim Jong-un to formalize what both sides have been quietly building for months: a military partnership that is now openly expanding. The meeting, announced through North Korea's state news agency, produced the kind of language governments use when they want to signal permanence. Belousov described the cooperation as "actively expanding in all areas, including military cooperation." Kim, for his part, pledged that North Korea would "invariably support" Russia's war in Ukraine. The timing was deliberate. North Korean troops have already begun arriving in western Russia to fight alongside Russian forces, a deployment that has drawn sharp condemnation from the West and raised the stakes of the conflict in ways that seemed unthinkable a year ago.

The visit also served as a statement about how Russia sees the conflict now. Kim characterized Western permission for Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles as "direct military intervention," echoing Moscow's own rhetoric. He affirmed Russia's right to take "resolute action" in self-defence—language that could justify further escalation. What was once a regional war between Russia and Ukraine has begun to look like something larger, with new actors entering the stage and old alliances hardening.

Ukraine, sensing the narrowing window, is pushing hard for protection. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has written to NATO counterparts urging them to extend a formal invitation to join the alliance at next week's Brussels meeting. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has gone further, proposing something more immediate: that Ukrainian territory currently under his control be placed under NATO's protective umbrella now, without waiting for full membership. In an interview with Sky News, he suggested this could stop the "hot stage" of the war and allow Ukraine to recover its remaining territory through negotiation later. The proposal, he noted, had never been formally offered before because it had never been officially requested.

Britain's intelligence chief, Richard Moore, delivered a rare public warning that amounted to a direct appeal to the incoming Trump administration. Speaking in Paris alongside his French counterpart, Moore argued that abandoning Ukraine would not bring peace—it would invite further Russian aggression at "infinitely higher" costs down the line. He accused Russia of waging a "staggeringly reckless campaign" of sabotage across Europe while simultaneously raising the nuclear temperature to intimidate other nations into withdrawing support from Kyiv. The message was clear: allowing Putin to consolidate control over Ukraine would not satisfy him.

Meanwhile, the war itself continued its grinding pace. Russia launched more than 100 drones at Ukraine overnight Thursday and into Friday, killing at least one person and wounding eight others. In the southern city of Kherson, a woman died in a drone strike. In Odesa, thirteen residential buildings were damaged and seven people injured. In Kyiv, fragments from downed drones struck a pediatric clinic in the Dniprovskyi district, hospitalizing a security guard and damaging nearby structures. The attacks on energy infrastructure were particularly severe: at least two regions experienced power cuts, with Mykolaiv reporting that 70 percent of customers had been without electricity for a second consecutive day.

Ukraine struck back. Its forces downed 47 Russian attack drones and reported hitting the Atlas oil depot in the Rostov border region, triggering a major fire. They also destroyed a radar station for a Russian air defence system in Zaporizhzhia. On the ground, Russia claimed to have seized the village of Rozdolne in the Donbas, continuing a pattern of incremental territorial gains that has accelerated in recent months.

Ukraine's military leadership also shifted. President Zelenskyy appointed Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new commander of the country's land forces, signaling that "internal changes" were necessary to achieve Ukraine's strategic objectives. The move suggested recognition that the current approach needed adjustment.

France, too, reaffirmed its commitment. President Emmanuel Macron condemned Russia's "indiscriminate" strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure in a call with Zelenskyy, and Paris indicated that the use of French-supplied missiles by Ukraine remained "an option." Meanwhile, Russia returned more than 500 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in combat, most from the eastern Donetsk region—a grim accounting of the war's human toll that continues to mount with no clear endpoint in sight.