Russia and Ukraine exchange drone strikes as North Korea's top diplomat visits Moscow

KYIV, Ukraine — (AP) — Russia and Ukraine exchanged scores of drone strikes Wednesday as North Korea's top diplomat arrived in Russia for talks after his country reportedly deployed thousands of soldiers to help Moscow's war efforts.

Ukraine's air force said that Russia launched 62 drones and one missile overnight, adding that 33 of them were intercepted and 25 were jammed.

The drones struck a residential building and a kindergarten in Kyiv, injuring nine people, including a child, according to the city administration. "Russian drones did not change their constant tactics — they approached the capital from different directions, at different heights,” it said.

Russian attacks also targeted other regions of Ukraine, killing at least four and injuring about 30 others over the past 24 hours, authorities said.

At the same time, Russian forces have pressed their slow-moving offensive in eastern Ukraine. In Moscow, the Defense Ministry announced the capture of the village of Kruhlyakivka in the Kharkiv region.

The ministry said that air defenses downed 25 Ukrainian drones over several regions in the country's west and southwest.

The new attacks come as North Korea's Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui traveled to Russia for talks that South Korea's spy agency said could involve discussions on sending additional troops to Russia and what the North would get in return.

The Pentagon said North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia, and that they will likely fight against Ukraine "over the next several weeks."

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Tuesday that a "relatively small number" of North Korean troops are now in the Kursk region, where Russia has struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion.

A Ukrainian intelligence official told The Associated Press that North Korean troops are currently stationed 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Russia-Ukraine border, but did not give further details. The official spoke anonymously because of not being authorized to disclose this information publicly.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday during a trip to Iceland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that his government had set a goal of capturing the Kursk nuclear power plant as Russia has suggested. “If we wanted to occupy their nuclear station, we could do it, but we never wanted it,” he said.

Talking about the “victory plan” that he has presented to Ukraine's Western allies, Zelenskyy said that while many of them began to accept it, some told him that he wanted too much. “Too much of what? We want to live. Is it too much? Just to live,” he said.

Zelenskyy also complained that some confidential parts of his plan were leaked to the media, including Kyiv's call on the U.S. to provide long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that was reported by The New York Times.

“They say that Ukraine wants or wanted a lot of missiles, like Tomahawks and etcetera, but it was confidential information between Ukraine and White House,” he said. "How to understand these messages? So, it means between partners there is nothing confidential.”

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