CNN
 — 

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has for the first time acknowledged that North Korean soldiers took part in the fighting to recover Russian territory after Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region last year.

Two days after Moscow claimed to have recaptured all of Kursk, Putin said in a Monday statement: “Our Korean friends acted out of a sense of solidarity, justice and genuine comradeship.”

“We pay tribute to the heroism, high level of special training and self-sacrifice of the Korean soldiers who, shoulder to shoulder with Russian fighters, defended our homeland as their own,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian, Ukrainian, the US and European governments continue to debate the terms for any ceasefire and more permanent deal to end the fighting.

On Sunday, however, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius criticized the US proposals as “a capitulation.”

Ukraine knew it might have to sacrifice some territory to reach a lasting ceasefire deal “but they will certainly not go as far – or should not go as far – as the latest proposal by the American president,” Pistorius told German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday.

“Ukraine on its own could have got a year ago already what was included in that (Trump proposal), practically through a capitulation,” he said. “I cannot discern any added value.”

Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence reports have previously assessed that about 12,000 North Korean soldiers had been sent to fight in Russia.

In March, the South Korean military said a further 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been dispatched, as well as a “significant amount” of short-range ballistic missiles and hundreds of pieces of 170-millimeter self-propelled howitzers and 240-millimeter multiple rocket launchers.

North Korea had not publicly confirmed its contribution until Monday, when it said: “The operations for liberating the Kursk area to repel the adventurous invasion of the Russian Federation by the Ukrainian authorities were victoriously concluded,” according to state-run news agency KCNA.

Putin and Kim signed a landmark defense pact in Pyongyang last year, as the two autocratic nations ramped up ties to a “new level,” and pledged to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other is attacked.

Russia said at the weekend that its forces had recaptured Kursk, the border region where Ukraine launched a surprise offensive last year, though Kyiv insists its troops are fiercely battling to preserve their foothold in the territory.

The Ukrainian military poured precious resources into holding onto its territory there, with the view of using it as a key bargaining chip in any peace talks. The operation was also launched to relieve pressure from the embattled eastern front line.

The US plan to bring a permanent end to the fighting includes Washington’s recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea – the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed more than a decade ago – and would grant Russia additional Ukrainian territory occupied since its full-scale invasion began in 2022, according to officials familiar with the plan.

Trump has been frustrated that his efforts to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv after three years of war have so far fallen short, and the White House has since mounted an increasingly urgent push to strike a deal.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that the coming week would be “very critical” in determining whether the US can continue trying to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, suggesting President Donald Trump’s deadline for reaching a deal was swiftly approaching.

“We’re close, but we’re not close enough,” Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He added that Moscow and Kyiv were closer than ever to striking an agreement, but still tempered expectations for a breakthrough.

Rubio later spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about “consolidating” preconditions for negotiations, according to the foreign ministry in Moscow, which described the call as a “productive exchange of views.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia is ready to enter peace talks with Ukraine without preconditions.

Peskov told Russian reporters that what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation is continuing, and the United States is continuing its efforts to bring the process to a peaceful course.”

He said Putin “has repeatedly confirmed that the Russian side is ready to start the negotiation process with Ukraine without any preconditions.”

Peskov said there needed to be signals from Ukraine in order for direct negotiations to resume. “At least Kyiv should take some action in this regard. They have a legal ban on doing so. But so far we have not seen such actions.”

The last direct negotiations on ending the conflict were in the spring of 2022.

Putin said on April 21 he was open to the possibility of bilateral talks with Ukraine, as pressure from the US builds on both sides to agree to a quick peace deal.

Peskov said there were no immediate plans for a conversation between Putin and US President Donald Trump.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday conceded that Ukraine lacks the military might needed to retake Crimea by force but has long made it clear that making territorial concessions is a red line. Recognizing Crimea as Russian would also be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution.

Following Trump and Zelensky’s remarkable face-to-face meeting at the Vatican before Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, the US president said they briefly discussed the issue of Crimea and that he believes Zelensky “wants to make a deal.”

Trump also criticized Putin in some of his strongest comments against the Russian leader to date.

“I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” Trump said Sunday as he returned to Washington to begin what aides say will be a critical week in determining the future of US-led efforts to broker an end to the war. “We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it and just go back to life.”

CNN
 — 

The Russian military is planning to increase the use of small squads on motorcycles and quadbikes on the frontlines in Ukraine as it plans fresh offensives, according to the Ukrainian military and analysts of the conflict.

The Russian Defense Ministry published video on Saturday showing units practising tactics in groups of two or three motorbikes, with a rider seen navigating a course to the sound of a pulsating electronic soundtrack.

Russian forces have used motorbikes and quads in several areas of the frontlines in an effort to evade Ukrainian drones for more than a year. But the Institute for the Study of War in Washington says the latest Russian video “indicates that the Russian military is likely developing a tactical doctrine for systematic offensive motorcycle usage and may be preparing to issue an increased number of motorcycles.”

Ukraine expects a major Russian offensive in the next few months as Moscow tries to capture more territory before any ceasefire agreement.

The Ukrainian military calls the motorbike assaults ‘banzai attacks.’ One Ukrainian commander, Andriy Otchenash, said earlier this month that the motorcycles are designed for a quick blitzkrieg. “They can advance very quickly, get behind the lines,” he said, but losses on the Russian side were very high.

“It indicates that the enemy does not have a large amount of military offensive equipment, but on the other hand, it is an adaptation to the conditions of war,” said the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communication.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian military said it had repelled a Russian assault on the village of Bahatyr on the Donetsk frontlines, destroying 15 motorcycles and killing about 40 Russian soldiers. It distributed video of drones eliminating a number of motorbikes in open countryside.

The Ukrainian military reported in February the Russians were using more quadbikes around Chasiv Yar, also in Donetsk, where the frontlines have barely moved over the past year.

One Ukrainian military spokesman, Lt. Col. Pavlo Shamshyn, said the use of motorbikes was a mixed blessing for Russian troops. Their speed and manoeuvrability helped them to evade Ukrainian drones, but the noise of a bike prevented riders from hearing drones.

Russian state media has been promoting the advantages of motorbike units. Russia Today reported last week that motorcyclists were planting mines and interviewed a soldier with the 39th Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade, who is part of a new motorised group.

“Our main advantage is that we can drive directly into [the enemy’s position] and neutralise everyone,” he said. The enemy “hear the roar of the motorcycles, and it causes panic among them. They simply abandon their positions and run away.”

The Russian military is also using motorbikes to evacuate the wounded. The Telegram account of the Defense Ministry’s publication Zvezda reported last week that Russian marines fighting in the Kursk region were using all-terrain motorcycles to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers. Video showed a soldier being put on the back of a bike in muddy fields.

Last year, the UK’s Defense Ministry said the Russians were increasingly using off-road bikes and all-terrain vehicles for night-time attacks. But it noted that Ukrainian FPV drones, which fly into their target, had already demonstrated how vulnerable such unprotected vehicles were.

Late in 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin inspected Chinese-made all-terrain vehicles being procured for the Russian army. At that point some 500 were already in service, and the Defense Ministry ordered around 1,500 more.

CNN
 — 

Inside the soaring nave of St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, the quiet hush of world leaders paying respects to the late Pope Francis was briefly interrupted by a flurry of activity in a secluded corner near the entrance doors.

Men in black robes rushed over with red-cushioned chairs. A contingent of American Secret Service agents hovered, alert, from a distance. Dignitaries walking past gave the scene wide berth.

Straining to catch a glimpse of what was happening, the visitors saw a remarkable scene unfold: President Donald Trump, knee-to-knee with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodomyr Zelensky, in their first face-to-face meeting since an explosive Oval Office row ended with the Ukrainian’s eviction from the White House 57 days earlier.

“I see him as calmer,” Trump said of Zelensky the next day. “I think he understands the picture. And I think he wants to make a deal.”

Saturday’s meeting underneath the Vatican vaults was a remarkable collision of diplomacy and coincidence, quietly orchestrated by both sides at a moment of reckoning in the three-year-long war, according to multiple American and European officials familiar with the matter.

Behind the scenes, European officials had been encouraging a meeting between the men for days, hopeful an in-person meeting in Rome could prove fruitful at a fraught moment in negotiations to end the war.

Trump’s criticism after the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin was his strongest to date, and sparked new hope in Ukraine and beyond that the US leader could be adopting a different approach to a conflict he once promised to end on the first day of his presidency.

“I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” Trump said of Putin on Sunday as he returned to Washington to begin what aides say will be a critical week in determining the future of US-led efforts to broker an end to the war. “We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it and just go back to life.”

Whether Trump maintains the critical approach to Putin is anyone’s guess. History has shown Trump far more conciliatory toward the Kremlin leader, sometimes echoing his talking points.

And for all of the Vatican meeting’s symbolism — peace talks inside the marble walls where Pope Francis had once called for peace — it was far from clear afterward what if anything had actually changed in the efforts to end the war.

Still, for a president who said this month he was “not a fan” of Zelensky and accused him of prolonging the invasion of his own country, it was a remarkable shift in blame after the encounter inside St. Peter’s.

It was a meeting neither side seemed certain would come to pass, and both US and Ukrainian officials were careful not to telegraph any expectations ahead of time. Heading into Rome on Friday, Trump suggested he wouldn’t have time for extensive meetings, and questioned whether it would be quite suitable to engage in foreign policy while honoring the late Pope Francis.

Inside the Vatican the next day, as Trump and Zelensky found themselves walking through the building at the same time, it still wasn’t clear to people watching the encounter unfold whether they would in fact sit down for talks.

But Vatican officials were quick to mobilize, bringing three chairs to a corner of St. Peter’s Basilica where Trump and Zelensky could be sequestered from fellow world leaders and speak in private.

The third chair was originally intended for a translator, one person familiar with the matter said, seeking to put to rest speculation it could have been meant for French President Emmanuel Macron, who greeted both Trump and Zelensky in the minutes before the huddle began.

Macron had been among the leaders who was hoping Trump and Zelensky would be able to speak directly in Rome. But when it came time for them to sit down, Macron walked away after exchanging words with Trump, leaving the US and Ukrainian leaders to speak directly.

“The thing he was determined to do was to talk to Zelensky face-to-face and talk about how we’re going to get the largest land war in Europe to an end,” US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who was in Rome, said on Fox News. “Both sides have to want that.”

With no aides present, the precise contours of what the two men discussed underneath a massive painting of Jesus’s baptism remain closely held. Only cursory readouts were provided afterward.

But a day later, Trump told reporters Zelensky had asked him for more weapons, which he said was typical, and said they briefly discussed the issue of Crimea — the peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, which the US would recognize as Russian under an American peace proposal.

If Zelensky had protested that concession, Trump seemed unmoved.

“I don’t know how you can bring up Crimea,” he said Sunday. “That’s been a long time.”

Trump’s efforts to end the Ukraine war have become a major frustration as he approaches his hundredth day in office. He has told advisers that mediating an end to the conflict is harder than he expected.

Some of Trump’s advisers continue to worry they are wasting their time trying to resolve a conflict that has shown little signs of waning. Trump himself said Sunday he was “surprised and disappointed” that Russia had launched a missile assault on Kyiv as the talks were proceeding, and pondered whether Putin was “tapping” him along.

Perhaps as a way to pressure both sides to reach a deal, Trump’s top diplomat suggested Sunday the end-point in US efforts was approaching.

“This week is going to be really important week in which we have to make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in, or if it’s time to sort of focus on some other issues that are equally, if not more, important,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday on NBC.

Yet for all of the difficulties in negotiating a settlement, the meeting Saturday provided at least some hope to Trump and his aides that diplomacy was possible, at least with the Ukrainians.

For his part, Trump also appeared taken by the grandeur of the setting.

“It was a beautiful meeting,” Trump said in New Jersey. “I’ll tell you it was the nicest office I’ve ever seen.”

This story has been updated with additional details.