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Donald Trump will inherit a raft of national security challenges, including major wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump before the latter's inauguration in January, Reuters reported quoting Interfax news agency.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SEOUL—Kim Jong Un tried peace talks and refrained from testing new weapons to shed North Korea’s status as a pariah state. Now he is doubling down on rogue behavior to get what he wants.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had launched around 900 guided aerial bombs, 500 drones and 30 missiles against Ukraine over the past week. Zelenskyy appealed Sunday on X to Ukraine's allies to provide «long-range capabilities for our security», saying that these «attacks would have been impossible if we had sufficient support from the world». Kyiv is still awaiting word from its Western partners on its repeated requests to use the long-range weapons they provide to hit targets on Russian soil, including for preemptive Ukrainian strikes on camps where North Korean troops are being trained.

Viktor Orban made his loyalties clear when he landed in Georgia this week. As protesters disputed an election victory for its pro-Russian leadership, Hungary’s prime minister congratulated the country for choosing not to become the next Ukraine. The trip to Tbilisi was a bold move, even for a leader who has made no secret of his coziness with Russia and disregard for the European Union. But with all eyes now on voting in the US, the timing was as important as the optics. A win for his ally Donald Trump on Tuesday could make Orban the go-to person in Europe for the next US president, according to a person familiar with the thinking in Budapest. And with Russia’s war in Ukraine, Europe’s security and trade relations with China all in flux, Orban is relishing that prospect.

North Korea will stand by Russia until its victory in Ukraine, Pyongyang's foreign minister said in Moscow Friday, as the United States warned thousands of North Korean troops could be sent to combat in the Ukraine conflict in the coming days. North Korea's Choe Son Hui is on a visit to Moscow as the West believes up to 10,000 North Korean troops are on the brink of entering the more than two-year conflict on Russia's side. US intelligence has said some North Korean forces have made their way to Russia's Kursk border region, with Washington and Seoul urging Pyongyang to withdraw its troops.

Choe Son Hui, in a Moscow meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, accused the United States and South Korea of plotting a nuclear strike against her country. She did not provide evidence to back her assertion, but spoke of regular consultations between Washington and Seoul at which she alleged such plotting took place. Choe, who said the situation on the Korean Peninsula could become «explosive» any moment, told Lavrov that North Korea needed to strengthen its nuclear arsenal and perfect its readiness to deliver a retaliatory nuclear strike if necessary.

North Korea will stand by Russia until its «victory» in Ukraine, Pyongyang's foreign minister said in Moscow amid growing fears the reclusive country will enter the Ukraine conflict. North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui made the statement after talks with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. She was in Moscow as the West says thousands of North Korean troops are in Russia and will possibly be used in Ukraine.

Google' clash with Russia is not a very old story, as the tussle keeps reviving over time, and in this instance, a Russian court has surprised everyone by declaring a $20 decillion fine on the tech giants for violating laws, when they blocked pro-Kremlin media outlets. The fine has been compounded with other penalties imposed on Google, after it blocked 17 Russian TV channels as a result of international sanctions. These TV channels were all speaking in favor of the Kremlin, and in support of the Russian aggression on Ukraine, among other things.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, has had a bad week. Elon Musk’s X suspended his new Hebrew-language account, and the Israel Defense Forces unleashed a devastating series of air raids against his country’s military infrastructure.

Russia has made aproposal to allow Indian airlines to operate local flights within its territory, as its own carriers are unable to meet demand because of Western sanctions cutting off their access to US and European aircraft manufacturers and component supplies. Russia approached India as well as China and a few Central Asian nations a month back, with a ‘cabotage’ proposal to allow their airlines to operate flights on its domestic routes, people aware of the development said. The matter was again raised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia last week for the BRICS summit, they said. However, Indian airlines have expressed reservations over the proposal and told the government that it would not be viable for them to operate within Russia, the people said.

Georgia's president on Monday urged the West to support opposition protests of the official results of a weekend parliamentary election in which the governing party was declared victorious amid voting irregularities and allegations of Russian meddling. President Salome Zourabichvili, who refused to recognize the official results, told AP that the South Caucasus nation has fallen victim to Russian pressure aimed at derailing Georgia's plans to join the European Union. «We've seen that Russian propaganda was directly used,» said Zourabichvili, a fierce critic of Georgian Dream, the governing party. She said the government has been «working hand-in-hand with Russia,» and «probably» received help from Moscow's security services.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Israel’s airstrikes early Saturday didn’t just destroy critical Iranian military infrastructure. They also battered the reputation of Russian military equipment, which has already been pummeled by poor performance during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine is widening its dragnet in the search for troops to shore up its creaking front lines, conducting spot checks of men at upscale venues including a concert and a wine store in Kyiv and a street of hip eateries in Odesa. The stepped-up efforts show the difficulties Ukraine faces in raising new soldiers to backfill front-line losses as the war approaches the three-year mark.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Several times over the past three months, swarms of as many as 150 Ukrainian drones flew hundreds of miles into Russia, slamming into missile storage facilities, strategic fuel reservoirs, military airfields and defense plants. Once considered exceptional, these deep strikes now barely register in the news.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff said on Friday that a full withdrawal of Russian troops, and not just peace talks, were essential to ending his country's more than 2-1/2-year-old war against Moscow. The chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, was addressing an international meeting devoted to implementing a peace plan, one of several gatherings staged as a follow-up to last June's world «peace summit» hosted by Switzerland. «Don't expect this war to end when the warring sides begin to talk to each other,» Yermak told the gathering, according to the president's website. «Don't be deceived. This war will end when the last soldier of the occupying army returns home.»

Russia’s central bank has raised its key interest rate by two percentage points to a record-high 21% in an effort to combat growing inflation as government spending on the military strains the economy’s capacity to produce goods and services and drives...

Russia moved to ratify a key defence pact with North Korea on Thursday, while South Korea warned it would not «sit idle» if Pyongyang deployed thousands of troops to help Moscow fight Ukraine. Seoul's spy agency says thousands of North Korean soldiers are currently training in Russia and are likely to deploy to the front lines in Ukraine soon, with thousands more to be sent by December. Lawmakers in Russia's lower house of parliament voted unanimously on Thursday to ratify a treaty with North Korea that provides for «mutual assistance» if either party faces aggression.

Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...

Kim Jong Un has visited missile bases to examine their readiness to undertake actions of «strategic deterrence», while calling U.S. nuclear capabilities a growing threat to the country, state media reported on Wednesday. The U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal poses an «ever-increasing threat» to North Korea's security environment, which demands that Pyongyang maintain a strict counteraction posture of its nuclear forces, he was quoted as saying by KCNA. North Korea has been stepping up its development of ballistic missiles and a nuclear arsenal, drawing international sanctions, and forming close military relations with Russia.

Indian nationals in the Russian Army during his bilateral meeting on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan. Addressing a media briefing, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the two leaders also shared perspectives on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Prime Minister reiterated that dialogue and diplomacy was the way forward to achieve resolution of the conflict. He briefed President Putin about his engagements with the Ukrainian leadership and noted that India stood ready to contribute in bringing peace to the region. «An important issue that came up was the issue of early discharge of the remaining Indian nationals in the Russian army. This figured from both sides in the discussion and with the support of the Russian side, a number of Indian nationals have, in recent months, been able to return to India. We understand that currently the embassy is pursuing around 20 cases with the Russian side and we very much hope that all of these individuals can be released at an early date and be repatriated to India very soon,» he said.