Russia's army

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky accused North Korea on Sunday of sending troops to Russia's army and once again appealed for more support to prevent "a bigger war."

Zelensky's comments came days after visiting several European capitals to press his case for more military and financial help in the war against invading Russian forces.

Two Russian regions bordering Ukraine ordered more evacuations on Monday as Moscow battled to contain an unprecedented push onto its territory.

Ukraine sent troops into Russia last week in its biggest cross-border operation since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022 and the most significant by a foreign army since World War II.

Thousands of Ukrainian troops are taking part in an incursion aiming to destabilize Russia by showing up its weaknesses, a top Ukrainian official has told AFP as the assault entered its sixth day.

Russia's army was fighting a major Ukrainian border incursion for the third day running, Moscow said Thursday, with independent analysts saying Kiev's troops had advanced up to 10 kilometres (six miles) into Russia.

Russia's FSB security service said Thursday it had killed ISIL militants who were planning a "terrorist attack" on a Moscow synagogue, Russian state news agencies reported.

The FSB said an ISIL cell based in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, had been planning to shoot Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in the capital.

Ukraine's top commander Valery Zaluzhny was on Thursday removed from his post, in the biggest shake-up of Kiev's military leadership since Russia's invasion began almost two years ago.

The popular general had led the Ukrainian army since the start of the war, pushing back a vastly more powerful invading force in the first months of the conflict.

Vladimir Putin has survived the most dramatic and direct challenge to his 23-year reign, and the mutinous mercenary oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin is in the process of being disarmed. Calm has been restored, at least on the surface. And in Ukraine the war grinds on. Now that the dust has settled, has the aborted insurrection in Russia changed anything? What have we learned?

Russia said Monday it had repelled "a large-scale offensive" by Ukrainian forces in Moscow-annexed Donetsk, as fighting intensified along their border.

Kiev has for months said it is preparing a major counteroffensive, hoping to reclaim territory lost since Russia launched its military operation in February 2022.

Their soldiers battling and dying across muddy trenches, ruined towns and sprawling minefields, Russia and Ukraine have stepped up recruitment drives to bolster their badly depleted militaries, in another sign that both sides are steeling themselves for a long war.

Ukraine has announced fresh gains in its counter-offensive, including the recapture of the strategic city of Izyum in the country's east, where Kiev accused Russia of carrying out reprisal strikes against electricity infrastructure.