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North Korea's state media has shown images of Kim Jong Un draping coffins with the country's flag in what appears to be the repatriation of soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine.

Pyongyang confirmed for the first time in April that it had sent troops to fight for Moscow in the war in Ukraine, after Kim signed a strategic partnership treaty with Vladimir Putin last summer.

In a series of photographs displayed at a performance by North Korean and Russian artists to mark the one-year anniversary of the treaty, Kim is seen next to rows of coffins, covering them with flags.

North Korea's state KRT television aired the performance, which was attended by Russia's culture minister, Olga Lyubimova.

Germany's foreign minister is in Kyiv today in a show of continued support for Ukraine's fight to repel Russia.

Johann Wadephul has met his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha and is due to meet with Volodymyr ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y later.

The minister said in a statement that Germany will help Ukraine "continue to defend itself successfully - with modern air defence and other weapons, with humanitarian and economic aid".

Germany has been Ukraine's second-largest military backer after the US, but Berlin hasn't yet signed off on giving Kyiv the use of its long-range Taurus missiles.

This is due to fears that such a move could enrage the Kremlin and end up drawing NATO into Europe's biggest conflict since the Second World War.

Instead, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged last month to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missile systems that would be free of any Western-imposed limitations on their use and targets.

Russia's foreign minister says NATO's decision to increase defence spending will be catastrophic for the alliance and could lead to its eventual collapse.

NATO "needs to be guided by common sense", Sergei Lavrov said in comments run by Russian state news agency TASS.

Members of the NATO alliance agreed last week to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries' economic output by 2035.

Asked about remarks made by Poland's foreign minister, who was reported to have said that an arms race between Russia and the West could trigger the fall of president Vladimir Putin, Lavrov said he thought NATO could collapse.

"Since he is such a predictor, he probably foresees that a catastrophic increase in the budget of NATO countries, according to my estimates, will also lead to the collapse of this organisation," Lavrov said.

Scroll through the maps below to view different parts of the battlefield, including the situation in key regions such as Luhansk, Donetsk, Kursk and Belgorod.

Volodymyr ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y says he's signed a decree that will bring Ukraine out of a treaty banning the production and use of anti-personnel mines.

The president said in his nightly video address that Ukraine was on the path to withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention in response to Russia's extensive use of mines in the war.

ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y said Russia had never been a party to the convention "and is using anti-personnel mines with utmost cynicism".

The mines, he added, are "often the instrument for which nothing can be substituted for defence purposes."

Russia has used anti-personnel mines extensively in parts of Ukraine where its forces have been operating. Ukraine sees the clearing of such mines as a key element in post-war recovery.

Other countries bordering Russia, notably Finland, Poland and the three ex-Soviet Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania- have either withdrawn from the convention or indicated that they would do so.

They have said withdrawing from the treaty would provide their forces with "flexibility and freedom of choice" to use new weapons systems, including anti-personnel mines, to strengthen NATO's eastern flank.

Russian attacks across multiple Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours have killed at least six people, according to local officials. 

The strikes involved drones, artillery and guided bombs, hitting residential areas and critical infrastructure.

Two people were killed and eight more injured after attacks on six settlements in Kharkiv, its governor reported.

Another two people were killed in Kherson, governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported, as Russian strikes hit residential areas and civilian infrastructure.

In Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed in the Vasylivka district, officials said. A sixth person was killed in Donetsk, with at least four others injured, governor Vadym Filashkin said.

There were also reports of attacks in Dnipro, Kyiv and Sumy. In the latter, Russian attacks injured three civilians, regional authorities said.

Ukraine says Russia is faking its readiness for serious peace talks while proving on the battlefield that it's not prepared to end the war.

Vladimir Putin said last week that Moscow was willing to hold a new round of peace negotiations with Ukraine, potentially in Istanbul, although the time and venue had yet to be agreed. 

Two days later, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that peace with Ukraine depended "on the position of the Kyiv regime".

Responding this morning, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential office and Volodymyr ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y's top aide, says the comments are signs of "yet another manipulation" from Moscow.

"They are made in parallel with missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and attempts to destroy critical infrastructure," he says.

"Russia is not just not ready for peace - it demonstrates this every day with its actions. 

"And at the same time, it is trying to impose a distorted picture on the world, where the Kremlin is supposedly 'open' and everyone else is guilty of 'war'."

In the last week alone, Kyiv says Russia has launched more than 114 missiles, 1,270 drones and nearly 1,100 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine.

Ukraine and Russia have both said there were big differences between the proposals submitted by each side at the two previous rounds of talks.

Moscow has been demanding that Ukraine cede more land and abandon Western military support - conditions Kyiv calls unacceptable.

Donetsk and Kharkiv were the primary targets as Russia attacked Ukraine with 107 drones overnight, according to Kyiv's air force.

It said 15 strikes were recorded while 74 of the drones were downed around northern, eastern and southern areas of the country.

Of those, it says 64 were shot down, while 10 others were either lost or misguided using electronic warfare.

Russia has passed the grim milestone of losing more than one million troops in Ukraine since the start of the war, Kyiv's general staff claims.

It says Russia has lost around 1,020,010 troops in Ukraine since February 2022, including 1,070 casualties that Vladimir Putin's forces suffered just over the past day.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US thinktank in Washington, said this month that as many as 250,000 Russians have died in Ukraine.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has sustained nearly 400,000 casualties, it added, with between 60,000 and 100,000 deaths.

For context: Although Kyiv does not disclose its own combat losses in any detail and Moscow is believed to drastically underestimate its own casualties, the CSIS figures are in line with British and US intelligence assessments.

The director of the CIA and head of Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR) have agreed to remain in open contact following a recent phone call, the latter has told Russian state media.

"I had a phone call with my American counterpart, and we reserved for each other the possibility to call each other at any time and discuss issues of interest to us," Sergey Naryshkin said. 

He did not specify when the conversation took place, and CIA boss John Ratcliffe has not publicly confirmed the call.

Russian state media claimed the last known exchange between the two intelligence chiefs occurred in March.