Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly that Ukraine has sent two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea. The soldiers were captured in Russia's Kursk region in January 2025 and had expressed a desire to defect. South Korea's foreign ministry declined to confirm operational details of the transfer, citing the prisoners' safety.

Roughly 2,000 civilians remaining in Russian-occupied Oleshky are starving after food supplies ran out in May, with residents surviving on one daily meal of potato-free soup made from courgettes and foraged weeds. Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha told the UN general assembly that Russia is deliberately starving the city's residents to death, while the Kremlin acknowledged a "critical situation" but blamed Ukrainian forces for blocking aid. Expanding minefields and drone cover have halted deliveries, and attempts to drop food by drone have largely failed because Russian soldiers seize the supplies.

Poland has heightened its air defence posture and launched preventive air patrols over its eastern airspace following repeated alleged Russian incursions, which Warsaw has officially blamed on Moscow. Polish leaders warned that intelligence indicates Russia plans hybrid drone and missile strikes against countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland, aimed at weakening NATO's motivation to apply its regulations in the event of aggression against a member state. The move comes amid a series of suspected Russian airspace violations, including an Mi-8 helicopter entering Polish airspace from Kaliningrad for 42 seconds and drones shot down in Moldova and Romania.

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has widened its attacks to target Ukraine's data centres and internet providers, seeking maximum disruption to ordinary life. A Russian drone strike on a business centre in Kyiv killed four people and damaged a data centre, which Russia confirmed targeting and said was used by Ukrainian military intelligence. About 100,000 households in Kyiv and the region suffered internet outages on Wednesday due to strikes.