Ukraine news – latest: Putin’s only aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov catches fire in Russia

Russia’s proxy Wagner Group fighting in Ukraine has denied a claim from the US that it has bought weapons from North Korea, a move that would be in breach of UN resolutions.

The Wagner Group rejected the claim as “gossip and speculation”.

“Everyone knows that North Korea has not been supplying any weapons to Russia for a long time. And no such efforts have even been made,” Reuters quoted Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin as saying in a statement.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this week that US intelligence had concluded the Wagner Group had obtained the equipment to help its forces as they fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine.

“We assess that the amount of material delivered to Wagner will not change battlefield dynamics in Ukraine,” Mr Kirby said.

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Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he is returning to Ukraine with productive outcomes after meeting with all top leaders in Washington, suggesting he has procured the most advanced missile defence system for the war-hit country.

“We are returning from Washington – we are coming with good results. With something that will really help. When we say “patriots” in Ukraine and in the United States, we equally mean the protection of the state and people. This issue has been settled for Ukraine,” he said in an indirect reference to the powerful Patriot missile defence system.

There is financial support too, he said.

“Also there are other agreements – more on that later. We are bringing to Ukraine, to Donbas, to Bakhmut and to the south the decisions that our defence forces have been waiting for,” he said in his nightly address.

The US has imposed sanctions on 10 Russian naval entities over Russian operations against Ukrainian ports, Washington said.

The action comes after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met Joe Biden at the White House and delivered a speech to Congress on Wednesday, during which he thanked the United States for its support of Ukraine in the conflict and pleaded for more weapons.

“In the wake of Russian naval operations against Ukrainian ports, including those that are providing much-needed food and grain to the world, the United States today is imposing sanctions on Russian naval entities,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The entities include manufacturers and research organisations who aid the Russian navy.

Russia’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since October, Moscow has been targeting Ukraine‘s energy infrastructure with large waves of missile and drone strikes. Ukraine said its Black Sea port of Odesa did not operate for a day earlier this month and the ports of Chornomorsk and Pivdenny had operated only partially after a Russian attack on the region’s energy system.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia wants an end to the war in Ukraine and that all armed conflicts end with diplomatic negotiations.

Russian officials have in recent months been positioning themselves as looking to end the war through negotiations and suggesting that Ukraine was dragging the conflict on, despite them being responsible for the invasion.

“Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war. We are striving for this and will continue to strive,” Mr Putin told reporters. “We will strive for an end to this, and the sooner the better, of course.”

Just yesterday Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia saw no sign of peace talks with Kyiv as western supplies of weapons “aggravate the conflict”.

Russian former deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday he required surgery after being hurt in a blast in Russian-occupied Ukraine, the latest in a series of attacks on pro-Moscow officials.

Earlier, authorities in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine‘s southern Kherson region said a local official had been killed on Thursday in a car bomb attack

Mr Rogozin, also former head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, was hurt on Wednesday when Ukrainian shells hit the hotel where he was staying in Donetsk, a town controlled by Russian proxies since 2014.

“I have wounds – a piece of metal 8 millimetres by 6 millimetres that entered above the right shoulder blade,” Mr Rogozin said on Telegram. “There will have to be an operation. Several people close to me were also hit.”

Tass news agency quoted a Rogozin aide as saying he would be transported to Moscow as local doctors had decided an operation was too risky.

Russia’s Wagner Group has denied a claim from the US that it has bought weapons from North Korea, a move that would be in breach of UN resolutions (Andrew Buncombe writes).

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this week that US intelligence had concluded the Wagner Group had obtained the equipment to help its forces as they fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine.

“We assess that the amount of material delivered to Wagner will not change battlefield dynamics in Ukraine,” Mr Kirby said.

A former Russian deputy prime minister was injured in a Ukrainian attack on Donetsk on Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported.

Dmitry Rogozin, who has been giving military advice to two occupied regions of Ukraine which Russia has claimed as its territory, was hurt but his life was not in danger, the state-owned Tass agency reported, quoting an aide of Vladimir Putin’s former second-in-command.

Also hurt was Vitaly Khotsenko, the head of government of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, his press secretary was reported as saying.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a call today with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, thanked Ankara’s efforts to ensure continuation of the UN-brokered Black Sea grain initiative, the State Department said.

The two diplomatic leaders also underscored the importance of Nato unity in supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion, the State Department said, adding Blinken also expressed concern over the situation in Syria.

Turkey has played a broker role in the war so far, accomodating the discussion over the grain deal which ended a Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, and hosting peace talks earlier this year.

German federal prosecutors have given more details about an employee of Berlin’s foreign intelligence service (BND) arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia.

Police arrested the suspect, a German citizen identified as Carsten L, on Wednesday in the German capital, the federal prosecutors office said. It said police also raided his flat and workplace as well as those of another person.

“The accused is suspected of state treason,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “In 2022, he shared information that he came by in the course of his work with a Russian intelligence agency. The content is considered a state secret.”

In a separate statement, the BND said the employee had been placed in pre-trial detention and searches at two of its offices had been carried out.

German authorities have warned of likely heightened Russian spying given the Kremlin’s stand-off with the West over its invasion of Ukraine. The German government expelled 40 Russian “spies” in April, according to the domestic intelligence agency.

Ukrainians hailed President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime visit to the United States as a success, while Russian officials said on Thursday that it only fuelled the conflict.

The US has announced a new $1.8bn (£1.49bn) military aid package, including supplies of the Patriot air defence systems, the most powerful such weapons to be delivered to Ukraine yet.

“We are returning from Washington with good results, with things that will really help,” Mr Zelensky said on a video message shared on Thursday night on his Telegram account. He thanked President Joe Biden and the US Congress for supporting Ukraine‘s fight against Russia.

Neither Mr Zelensky nor any other Ukrainian authorities have confirmed if he is already back in Kyiv. He stopped in Poland on the return trip from the US.