Fighting

Ukraine.An overnight Russian drone attack on a military airfield in Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi region – home to the Starokostiantyniv airbase – showed Moscow was searching for warplanes involved in the recent attack on Crimea, Ukraine’s air force said. Russia sent 17 “kamikaze” drones to attack the airfield, which has been attacked continually during the war.

A Ukrainian intelligence source said a sea-borne drone damaged the small Russian Samum missile ship near Crimea’s Sevastopol Bay entrance, contradicting a Russian account that the attack was repelled. The vessel had to be towed for repairs and was listing to one side after the attack, the source added.Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said that Russian forces had “neutralised” hundreds of foreign spies in recent years.

Regional security

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko discussed whether Minsk might join Moscow’s efforts to revive an alliance with North Korea, following Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia this week.

Finland will prohibit the entry of vehicles with Russian licence plates as of midnight on Saturday, following Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have also recently barred all Russian-registered cars from crossing their borders.Romania has imposed additional flight restrictions in parts of its air space along the border with Ukraine amid a surge in Russian drone attacks on nearby Ukrainian Danube river ports.

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu inspected repairs and modernisation of the Russian Pacific fleet’s nuclear submarines at a key military shipyard.Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said a man was found guilty of treason and sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for sending Russian missile components to the United States. The FSB said a court in the Tver region had convicted Sergey Kabanov for smuggling components used in Russian air defence missile systems and in radar-based weapons systems.

North Korean military support

The Kremlin denied that Russia and North Korea have signed any agreements on military matters or any other security areas during Kim’s visit to Russia earlier this week. The US said it had information that talks on North Korea supplying Russia with arms for its war in Ukraine were advancing.

Kim visited a Russian military aviation factory which produces the country’s most advanced warplanes.Putin said Moscow would not breach any agreements concerning South Korea after meeting North Korea’s Kim during the week. “[South] Korea is our neighbour, and we must, one way or another, build good neighbourly relations with our neighbours,” Putin said.