The Kremlin on Tuesday declined to confirm a potential upcoming summit between President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. US officials said on Monday that Kim Jong Un expects to make a rare trip abroad to meet with Putin in Russia to discuss providing arms to Moscow for its war in Ukraine. Follow our live blog for the latest updates on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
The Kremlin on Tuesday declined to confirm an upcoming summit between President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which US officials have said they expected.
"No, we cannot (confirm this)," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when he was asked if Kim would meet Putin soon. "We have nothing to say on this."
10:31am: Ukraine expects no change in grain export situation after Putin-Erdogan talks, government source says
Ukraine does not expect its grain export situation to change following talks on Monday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, a senior Ukrainian government source said on Tuesday.
Erdogan said Ukraine's grain export corridor had been the most important issue in his talks with Putin, and that he believed a solution could be found soon to reviving the UN-brokered Black Sea grain export deal.
Ukraine saw more than 900 cluster munition casualties in 2022, amid broad Russian use of the widely-banned weapons, driving global casualty figures to a record high, a monitoring group said Tuesday.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, it has "extensively" used stocks of old cluster munitions and newly developed ones, and Ukrainian forces also used such weapons "to a lesser extent", the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) said in an annual report.
In all, the country, which had registered no cluster munition casualties for several years, recorded 916 deaths and injuries from the weapons last year, impacting essentially civilians, the report showed.
Those casualties accounted for the vast majority of the global figure, which rose to 1,172 in 2022 -- the highest annual number since CMC began reporting in 2010.
Russian air defences destroyed a Ukrainian aeroplane-style drone over Crimea on Tuesday morning, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
Cuba has identified an alleged human trafficking ring aimed at recruiting its citizens to fight in Russia's war in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said Monday.
The government was working to dismantle a "trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces involved in military operations in Ukraine", the ministry said in a statement.
The Cuban government had initiated criminal proceedings against those carrying out the trafficking, it added.
Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the government was "acting with the full force of the law" against trafficking operations.
"Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine," the ministry said, adding it would take action against anyone "who participates in any form of human trafficking for the purpose of recruitment or mercenarism for Cuban citizens to use arms against any country".
There was no immediate reaction from Moscow.
Russia's air defence systems destroyed three drones early Tuesday which were trying to reach Moscow, the Russian capital's mayor said.
Sergei Sobyanin said there had been "no casualties", according to initial information.
Air defence forces "destroyed drones which were trying to carry out an attack on Moscow", he said on Telegram.
Russia's defence ministry said one was flying over the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, while a second was destroyed northwest of the capital above the Moscow region's Istrinsky district.
A third was also destroyed in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow.
"Air defence systems on duty destroyed an unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of Kaluga region," the ministry said on Telegram.
Russia shot down Ukraine-launched drones targeting Moscow in Istra district of the capital region and the Kaluga region early on Tuesday, the defence ministry and Moscow's mayor said.
The Russian defence ministry said that its air defence systems destroyed a Ukraine-launched drone around 3am (0000GMT) over the Kaluga region which borders with the Moscow region to its southwest.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app that drones were downed over Kaluga region and closer to Moscow over the Istra district, and that they "were trying to carry out an attack on Moscow".
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expects to make a rare trip abroad to meet with President Vladimir Putin in Russia to discuss providing arms to Moscow for its war in Ukraine, the United States said Monday.
The White House's National Security Council (NSC) spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said that "arms negotiations between Russia and the DPRK are actively advancing", using an acronym for North Korea.
"We have information that Kim Jong Un expects these discussions to continue, to include leader-level diplomatic engagement in Russia," she added.
The United States last week warned that Russia was already in secret talks with the North to acquire a range of munitions and supplies for Moscow's war effort.
Kim is likely to head by armored train later this month to Vladivostok, on Russia's Pacific coast not far from North Korea, to meet with Putin, according to The New York Times.
Key developments from Monday, September 4:
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain safely through the Black Sea won't be restored until the West meets Moscow's demands to facilitate Russian agricultural exports. Putin made the statement after talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Russian port city of Sochi.
Read yesterday's live blog to see how the day's events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
