Ukraine updates: Russia says it has retaken Kursk towns

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that the regular size of the country's army be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active soldiers, making it the second largest in the world after China's.

In a decree posted on the Kremlin website, Putin ordered that the total size of the armed forces be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active servicemen.

Putin has increased the size of the country's military for the third time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In December, Putin already raised the military's target strength to 2.2 million, including 1.33 million active soldiers.

The Kremlin order means that the military has increased by 50% since the onset of the full-scale invasion, when it stood at just over 1 million.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to abandon the idea that Russia can be defeated on the battlefield and to support China's peace plan for Ukraine. 

"It is a fact that Russia cannot be defeated in the military sense," Tokayev told Scholz in Astana, where the German chancellor was meeting with the Kazahk leader.

"A further escalation of war will lead to irreparable consequences for the whole of humanity and above all for the countries involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict," he added.

Scholz diplomatically disagreed, saying Germany supports Ukraine because Russia invaded it. "That is the case and will remain so, so that the country can defend itself and protect its integrity and sovereignty," he said.

Kazakhstan remains a close ally of its former Soviet master Russia. However, the government in Astana has not taken sides in the conflict or supported Moscow's claims to some Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine said it had asked the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to assess the situation in areas of Russia's Kursk region seized by Ukrainian troops.

"I instructed the Ukrainian foreign ministry to officially invite the UN and ICRC to join humanitarian efforts in the Kursk region," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media. 

"Ukraine is ready to facilitate their work and prove its adherence to international humanitarian law," he added.

The United Nations said it was ready to assess and verify the situation in the Kursk region, but only with Moscow's blessing. 

"We are ready to do it. We need authorization from the Russian Federation," said United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Moscow, however, dismissed Kyiv's proposal. "This is pure provocation. And we expect a sober assessment of such provocative statements" from the UN and ICRC, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy has condemned political violence everywhere following an alleged assassination attempton former US President Donald Trump.

"It's good that the suspect in the assassination attempt was apprehended quickly. This is our principle: the rule of law is paramount and political violence has no place anywhere in the world," Zelenskyy said, offering his best wishes to Trump and his family.

According to some US media, the suspect was a strong supporter of Ukraine and had even traveled there to assist in the war effort against Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also commented on the incident.

"We can see how tense the situation is there, including between political rivals -- the political fight is intensifying," Peskov said. "We are watching it closely, but we have never interfered in this in any way and we are not interfering now."

Kyiv regional authorities said that they were able to shoot down 53 of 56 Russian drones sent to the capital and the surrounding area overnight.

Governor Ruslan Kravchenko said that there was no damage to critical infrastructure from the remaining three missiles.

"Russian attack drones were heading to Kyiv from different directions and in different groups," Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, wrote on Telegram. "According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or damage in Kyiv."

The Kremlin has claimed that the towns of Uspenovka and Borki in Kursk are back under Russian control.

The claim could not be independently verified, but Russian officials have been keen to stress that they are having a successful counter-offensive in the region.

Last week, they claimed to have taken back 10 settlements that had fallen to Ukrainian forces since their surprise August offensive — the largest on Russian soil since World War II.

At the same time, Ukraine said it had invited the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to assist the humanitarian effort in Kursk.

"Ukraine is ready to facilitate their work and prove its adherence to international humanitarian law," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media site X, formerly Twitter, after a visit to the Sumy region, which borders Russia's Kursk.

es/rmt (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)