Closing summary
The images of EU member state Hungary’s prime minister shaking hands with Vladimir Putin were “very, very unpleasant” and defied logic given Budapest’s past history with Moscow, the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, said.
Russian attacks overnight and on Wednesday killed at least seven civilians in Ukraine and damaged the power grid in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
The Russian president warned Washington’s decision to supply the long-range army tactical missile systems, whose use Kyiv confirmed on Tuesday, “just prolongs the agony” for Ukraine, saying the US is wading deeper into the conflict.
The lower house of the Russian parliament has passed the second and third readings of a bill that revokes Russia’s ratification of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Both were passed unanimously by 415 votes to zero. Ukraine’s foreign ministry later condemned the steps taken, and urged the international community to respond to Moscow’s “provocations”.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in North Korea on Wednesday, Russian news agencies said, with a Kremlin spokesperson telling the Tass news agency that the two-day visit was expected to lay the groundwork for a future trip to the country by Putin.
Updated
Russian state television has played footage of crowds greeting the country’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in the pouring rain in Pyongyang, alongside a welcoming party waving pompoms (see earlier post at 13.05).
Shortly after arriving in Pyongyang, Lavrov said his visit was an opportunity to discuss implementing the agreements that Putin and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had signed when they met at Russia’s Vostochny cosmodrome in September.
Lavrov hailed Putin’s meeting with Kim as “historic,” saying their talks demonstrated the countries’ “deep interest in the development of comprehensive cooperation”, the Associated Press reports.
He said Russia highly appreciated North Korea’s “principled, unequivocal support for Russia’s actions” in Ukraine.
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