Vladimir Putin (Getty)

Friday’s Coverage: Summit Pledges $2 Billion for Kyiv

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1821 GMT:

Vladimir Putin is hoping Donald Trump will support his goals of prohibiting Ukraine from ever entering NATO and reducing the presence of Kyiv and its allies in the east of the country, say a former Kremlin official and a source who discussed the matter with Putin.

With Trump seeking a meeting with Putin as soon as possible, the Kremlin has signaled its willingness to talk after Trump re-enters the White House on November 20.

UPDATE 1711 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says troops captured two North Korean soldiers as prisoners of war in the Kursk region in western Russia.

Usually, Russia and other North Korean military personnel finish off their wounded and do everything possible to ensure that no evidence of the participation of another state — North Korea — in the war against Ukraine is preserved.

The two wounded soldiers received necessary medical care and are in the custody of Ukraine’s State security service SBU in Kyiv, said Zelensky.

Citing “irrefutable evidence” of the involvement of North Korean soldiers in the Russian war against Ukraine, the SBU said the POWs are being questioned with the help of Korean translators and South Korean intelligence.

One of the POWs said he was born in 2005 and was a rifleman who had been in military service in North Korea since 2021.

“It is noteworthy that the prisoner, like the Russian military at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, emphasizes that he was supposedly going for training and not for a war against Ukraine,” the SBU said.

The other POW was born in 1999 and has served in the North Korean army since 2016 as a sniper reconnaissance officer.

The first POW was issued with an ID document under the name of another person from Russia’s Tuva Republic, while the second one had no documents at all.

Almost two weeks ago, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said Ukrainian troops had captured a North Korean soldier who soon died of his wounds.

UPDATE 0754 GMT:

At least two civilians have been killed and at least 12 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

One person was killed in the frontline town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. A woman was slain and a man critically injured during a drone attack on the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine.

Air defenses downed 47 of 74 drones launched by Russia overnight. The other 27 dummy drones were lost to electronic counter-measures.

UPDATE 0743 GMT:

Ukraine’s Azov Brigade plans to form an international battalion.

A unit commander said Azov hopes to recruit people with military experience “because Ukraine is smaller than Russia” and needs all the help it can get in a struggle of international significance.

“We are fighting to not let Russia become closer to Europe,” he said. If Ukraine is defeated, he noted, Moscow will threaten Poland, the Baltic States, and other nations.

The commander said the recruits will have to complete a process including interviews, a psychological assessment, “and a polygraph test, to check they do not work undercover for Russian special forces”.

Initial training will last two to three months in groups of around 80 to reflect the realities of the Ukrainian battlefield, with the heavy use of drones and artillery.

After training, those willing to stay are expected to join infantry assault units.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the “significant blow” of further sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas revenues.

The US Treasury designated 182 ships. Both the US and the UK blacklisted the major Russian oil companies Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, as their profits are “lining [Vladimir] Putin’s war chest and facilitating the war” on Ukraine.

Zelensky posted after a conversation with US President Joe Biden:

It is significant that these sanctions now strike at Russia’s shadow tanker fleet and key companies such as Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz, which funnel funds directly to Putin. He must feel the cost of his war by seeing it directly impact his own pockets.

The President added in a message of gratitude to London, “The UK delivers yet another significant disruption to Putin’s ability to finance aggression.”

Gazprom Neft complained that the sanctions are “baseless” and “illegitimate”, and Russian insurance company Ingosstrakh declared that they would increase the risk of environmental disasters.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby emphasized, “This was not done with the expectation that it would become a bargaining chip that could be taken off the table when Ukraine wants to sit down at this negotiating table. There is no expectation now that either side is ready for negotiations.”

He said wide-ranging sanctions had not been introduced earlier because of the possibility of hikes in domestic prices.

Moscow’s “Oil Bombs”

Zelensky commented on yet another stricken Russian tanker in its “shadow fleet” trying to circumvent sanctions:

A damaged Russian tanker stranded near the German island of Rügen with almost 100,000 tons of Russian oil poses a clear threat to the marine environment and the entire coastline. This shadow fleet tanker is an oil bomb that, fortunately, didn’t detonate. However, Moscow operates hundreds of such “bombs,” each posing a threat.

Last month two Russian cargo ships sank off the coast of occupied Crimea, spilling heavy fuel oil along a 40 km (25 miles) stretch of coastline.

On Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized Russia’s use of “dilapidated oil tankers” as a threat to European security.

The 274-meter Eventin, with almost 100,000 tons of oil, is adrift and unable to maneuver in the Baltic Sea.