Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove in the southern Donbas region and are also fighting to envelop the larger city of Pokrovsk to the north, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

Dozens of partner countries will participate in the meeting of the Ramstein group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Ukraine's president says, and he will press for aid.

Ukraine has launched a fresh offensive in Russia's Kursk region, the Russian defence ministry says. In a statement, the military said efforts to destroy the Ukrainian attack group

Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a new attack in the Kursk region, an area of western Russia from which Russian troops have been trying to eject Ukrainian forces for the past five months.

Russia has lost up to a battalion of North Korean soldiers over the past two days in its western Kursk border region in the ongoing war against Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russian and North Korean forces suffered heavy losses in fighting in Russia's southern Kursk region. "In battles yesterday and today near just one village,