Zelensky criticises West response to N Korea involvement

Ukraine's Western allies have not adequately responded to the involvement of North Korean troops in Russia's war with Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in an interview.

The comments came after the US and South Korean defence chiefs called on North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia, warning that North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms were being deployed for possible action against Ukrainian forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is "testing the reaction of the West, of NATO states and the reaction of South Korea," the Ukrainian leader claimed in an interview with the South Korean television channel KBS.

"And if there is nothing - and I think that the reaction to this is nothing, it has been zero - then the number of North Korean troops on our border will be increased," he added.

South Korea has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Russia fight Ukraine and alleges that North Korea moved to deploy soldiers en masse after its leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defence deal with Mr Putin in June.

"I am surprised by China's silence. I am not saying that China is on our side, but it is one of the guarantors of security in your region, at least that's what we thought," Mr Zelensky said, adding, "and there is this silence now."

"I think, Japan, South Korea - you are both strong countries - should reach out to China and have China as an ally in terms of what North Korea is doing now," he added.

"North Korea is now dragging your whole region into a war," the Ukrainian leader claimed.

His office released the comments as the US and South Korea held high-level talks after North Korea test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles, demonstrating its threat to the US mainland days ahead of elections.

Three dead in Russian strike on Ukraine's Kharkiv

Two children are among three people killed in a Russian bombardment of an apartment building in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv, with dozens more injured, the local governor said.

A guided aerial bomb - a powerful weapon widely used by Russia - hit the building in the northeastern city yesterday evening, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The attack killed two boys, aged 12 and 15, and a man, Governor Oleg Synegubov said, with 35 people wounded.

The 15-year-old's body was found in the rubble of the destroyed part of the nine-storey building," Mr Synegubov said.

He lived with his grandparents on the first floor, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said.

Reporters at the scene saw rescuers searching through debris of the damaged apartment block, whose facade had partially collapsed.

Kharkiv lies around 30km from the Russian border and has been pounded by Russian aerial attacks throughout the two-and-a-half-year war.

President Zelensky called on his country's allies to act in response to the strike.

"Every decision they delay means at least dozens or even hundreds of such Russian bombs against Ukraine. Their decisions mean the lives of our people," he said on social media.

Mr Zelensky has been asking western countries to provide Ukraine with better defences, particularly long-range weapons.

Ukrainian defences downed two missiles and 17 drones launched by Russia overnight, the air force said.

Russian-held town in eastern Ukraine equips buses with drone jammers

Authorities in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian town of Horlivka have installed jamming devices on some buses to protect them from drone strikes, officials said.

At least one vehicle was attacked by a Ukrainian drone earlier this month, according to Russian-installed authorities, injuring three people.

The town is located near the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

Jammers work by disrupting a drone's communications with its operator, making it less dangerous, although crashing drones have also caused damage during the war.

"We cannot protect bus drivers and passengers ourselves, sowe requested help and they gave us four jamming devices," said Vladimir Mironov, owner and manager of a bus depot in Horlivka.

"We do not know how effective they will be, but it's the most we can do for the sake of security at the moment."

Horlivka is located close to the front lines and local authorities routinely report shelling and drone attacks.

Donetsk has been under Russian control since 2014, but Ukrainian troops continue to hold positions on its outskirts and the city regularly comes under artillery fire.

Donetsk is one of four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia partly occupies and claimed as its own in 2022 in a move condemned as illegal by most countries at the United Nations General Assembly.