Ukraine-Russia war live: Putin ally threatens Nato with nuclear strikes in wild speech

About 600 North Korean troops have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine out of a total deployment of 15,000 and they have shown signs of improved combat capabilities, South Korean lawmakers said this morning, citing the intelligence agency.

On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un confirmed he signed a military order on sending his troops to fight alongside Russian soldiers in Ukraine war.

The body of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna returned by Russia shows signs of brutal torture and has some missing internal organs, a new investigation by the Forbidden Stories journalism network said yesterday.

Numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment were found on the journalist’s body, said Yurii Belousov, head of the war crimes department at the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The experts who were a part of the investigation also saw evidence of torture including electric shocks.

The independent examination of Roshchyna’s body in Ukraine showed her brain, eyes, and part of the trachea had been removed, the investigation said.

Investigators have said the body showed evidence of an autopsy conducted in Russia before it was returned to Ukraine.

More than 40 journalists from 13 international media outlets participated in the investigation, conducting more than 50 interviews with former prisoners, ex-prison guards, and human rights activists.

Her remains, tagged with number 757, were handed over by Russia in late February with Russian documents falsely labelling her as an “unidentified male”.

However, a forensic examination showed the body was female. DNA testing on the remains finally identified them as Roshchyna’s with 99 per cent certainty.

The organs may have been deliberately removed from Roshchyna’s body to hide signs of suffocation or strangulation, according to an international forensic pathologist.

President Donald Trump has said he thinks Russian president Vladimir Putin wants to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite recent attacks against the beleaguered nation.

Mr Trump responded “I think he does” when asked whether he thinks Mr Putin wants to make peace during an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran.

“If it weren’t for me, I think he’d want to take over the whole country,” Mr Trump said. “I will tell you, I was not happy when I saw Putin shooting missiles into a few towns and cities.”

Russia launched 100 drones in overnight attacks targeting Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said this morning.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 37 drones, while 47 others disappeared from radars without reaching their targets – usually a result of being jammed by electronic warfare systems

The attacks caused damage in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions, it said in a Telegram post.

The Kremlin has falsely claimed that Ukraine had not responded to many offers by Russia president Vladimir Putin to start direct peace negotiations, Russian news agencies reported this morning.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia could not respond to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire without settling all “nuances”, the agencies reported.

The deflecting statements from the Kremlin come just hours after Mr Putin announced a three-day temporary ceasefire in the Ukraine war to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in the Second World War.

Mr Zelensky responded within hours and said Ukraine has never wanted a single day of this war.

“We made our own proposal to Russia – bilaterally – to halt strikes at least on civilian targets. We also proposed making the Easter ceasefire full and extending it for 30 days,” he said.

Mr Peskov’s statements did not acknowledge the Ukrainian president’s repeated offers of a truce.

The Russian news agencies claimed that starting this process of direct peace negotiations was Moscow’s primary focus.

Russia’s troops have captured the village of Doroshivka in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the Russian defence ministry announced today.

In a daily update shared on its Telegram channel, the Russian defence ministry said: “As a result of active actions, units of the ‘West’ military group liberated the village of Doroshovka in the Kharkiv region.”

Ukraine has not issued a comment on the Russian claim over its territory.

According to the latest battlefield update shared by The Institute for the Study of War, a Ukrainian commander had reported more activity in the Kharkiv region from Russian forces in the past 24 hours.

“The commander reported that Russian forces are more actively conducting artillery strikes and assaults, including with mopeds, and that Russian forces have rotated troops in this direction, increasing the number of Russian forces and reserves,” the ISW said in its latest assessment.

US vice president JD Vance has said Ukraine will not win the war against Russia as he claimed that a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv is not “necessarily guaranteed”.

“Sometimes you’re incredibly frustrated with the Ukrainians, sometimes you’re incredibly frustrated with the Russians,” Mr Vance said on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

“I can’t say with 100 per cent certainty, Charlie, that we’re going to be able to do it,” he said, referring to a peace deal.

Mr Vance said that the US is “making progress” in the negotiations but a peace deal is not necessarily guaranteed.

“If this doesn’t stop, the Ukrainians aren’t winning the war,” the US vice president said.

“I think there’s this weird idea among the mainstream media that if this thing goes on for just another few years, the Russians will collapse, the Ukrainians will take their territory back, and everything will go back to the way that it was before the war. That is not the reality that we live in,” he said.