Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin rejects talks with ‘illegitimate’ Zelensky as North Korean cannon deployed

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has urged US president Donald Trump to be on Ukraine’s side as the US attempts to broker a peace deal.

“We want him (Trump) to be on the side of justice, on the side of Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky said in the interview aired last night. “Putin is not afraid of Europe,” he said.

Mr Zelensky added Ukraine cannot recognise Russia’s occupation, but it preferred a diplomatic resolution.

The White House had no immediate comment.

Mr Trump has expressed willingness to speak to Mr Putin about ending the war, a contrast with the administration of Democratic former president Joe Biden, who shunned the Russian leader.

Russian petrochemicals giant Sibur said it has temporarily suspended production today at its plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region due to a Ukrainian drone attack.

The company said debris had fallen onto the plant and caused a fire but there were no casualties. Emergency services were working at the site, it said.

Oscar Jenkins, an Australian soldier who was previously feared dead in Russia, is alive and in Russian custody, Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong has announced.

Mr Jenkins, 32, signed up to fight for Ukraine against Russian forces before he was taken captive. A video showed him with hands bound and being struck by a Russian interrogator earlier this month, sparking fears for his life.

“The Australian government has received confirmation from Russia that Oscar Jenkins is alive and in custody,” Ms Wong said today.

Australia still holds “serious concerns for Mr Jenkins as a prisoner of war,” she said. “We have made clear to Russia in Canberra and in Moscow that Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war and Russia is obligated to treat him in accordance with international humanitarian law, including humane treatment,” the minister said.

A foreign soldier who trained him said earlier this month that he believed Mr Jenkins had been executed in captivity to make an example of him, according to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald on 14 January.

More than a hundred drones hit Russian oil facilities, including a nuclear power plant, in a major Ukrainian attack this morning, Russian officials said.

The Russian defence ministry said that 104 drones were involved in raids across western Russia, 11 of which were destroyed over the Smolensk region.

The Smolensk nuclear power plant, the largest power generating plant in Russia’s northwest, was working normally, RIA state news agency reported, citing the plant’s press service.

Air defence systems destroyed a drone attempting to strike a nuclear power facility in the western region of Smolensk bordering Belarus, governor Vasily Anokhin said on the Telegram app.

In total, Russian air defences destroyed drones over nine regions, nearly half of them over Kursk where Russian forces are fighting to drive out Ukrainian troops that have occupied several villages.

Debris from a destroyed Russian drone fell near a metro station in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv this morning, said mayor Vitali Klitschko.

“All emergency services heading to the site,” Mr Klitschko said on his Telegram channel. Kyiv was under an air raid alert for about half an hour starting at 3.55am GMT, according to data from Ukraine’s air force.

North Korea is set to send more than 100 artillery systems to be used against Ukraine’s forces in the war, officials in Kyiv said.

A close ally of Russia, North Korea is about to double the number of artillery systems it has deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, said Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief.

North Korea has already given at least 120 North Korean-made M1989 Koksans, as well as another 120 of its M1991 multiple-launch rocket systems, the Ukrainian military intelligence official said.

Pyongyang was preparing to send another tranche of at least the same amount, Lt Gen Budanov said, adding that open source analysts have spotted some already on their way to the war.

The 170mm M1989 Koksan howitzers were manufactured by North Korea to attack the South Korean capital in the event of a war. It is among the longest-range artillery systems in the world.