Russia-Ukraine war live: North Korea denies supplying Russia’s Wagner group with weapons; air raid sirens sound in Mykolaiv

Air raid sirens were sounding shortly before 7am in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, the regional governor indicated on Telegram, in a series of posts saying, “Air alarm”.

Kherson governor Yaroslav Yanushevych also posted an air raid alarm, but shortly afterwards said that the alert was over.

North Korea’s foreign ministry denied a media report it supplied munitions to Russia, calling it “groundless,” and denounced the United States for providing lethal weapons to Ukraine, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on Friday.

Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun reported earlier that North Korea had shipped munitions, including artillery shells, to Russia via train through their border last month and that additional shipments were expected in the coming weeks.

“The Japanese media’s false report that the DPRK offered munitions to Russia is the most absurd red herring, which is not worth any comment or interpretation,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement carried by the KCNA.

The White House said on Thursday the North has completed an initial arms delivery to a private Russian military company, the Wagner Group, to help bolster Russian forces in Ukraine.

The North Korean foreign ministry statement did not make any mention of Wagner, Reuters reports.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next few hours.

It is 7.30 in Kyiv. Our top stories this morning: North Korea’s foreign ministry denied a media report it supplied munitions to Russia, calling it “groundless,” and denounced the United States for providing lethal weapons to Ukraine, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on Friday.

And in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, air raid sirens sounded early this morning, according to the region’s mayor, Vitalii Kim on Telegram.

More on these stories shortly. Here are the other key recent developments:

• The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he was returning to Ukraine “with good results” after his visit to Washington. In his first video message after meeting with Joe Biden and addressing the US Congress, Zelenskiy thanked the president “for his help, his international leadership and his determination to win”.

• Zelenskiy gave a defiant address to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday, saying Washington’s continued support was key to ultimate victory. His trip to the US – his first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – came amid concern that the incoming Republican leadership of the House of Representatives might oppose proposals for an additional $45bn in weapons and other assistance next year.

• The White House announced a further $1.85bn in aid including, for the first time, Patriot air defence missiles to protect Ukraine’s infrastructure, already crippled by Russian attacks.

• The US is imposing fresh sanctions on 10 Russian naval entities over Russian operations against Ukrainian ports, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said. Six of the entities targeted in the latest sanctions were designated for operating or having operated in both the defence and related material sector and the marine sector of the Russian economy, the US state department said on Thursday.

• The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said the Patriot air defence the US was supplying to Ukraine was an old weapons system that Russia would be able to “knock down”. “The Patriot air defence is an outdated system,” Putin told reporters in Moscow, adding that Russia’s S-300 system outperformed it.

• Answering a question on the possibility to end the war with Ukraine through diplomatic means, Putin said that “all armed conflicts end through negotiations”. The Kremlin said the US supply of Patriot missile systems to Kyiv would not contribute to settling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and would not prevent Moscow from achieving its goals.

• A Russian-installed official in a part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region controlled by Russian forces was killed on Thursday in a car bomb attack, according to the pro-Moscow local administration. Andrei Shtepa, the pro-Russian head of the village of Lyubimovka in the Kherson region, reportedly died after a car blew up, it said, blaming “Ukrainian terrorists”. The report has not been able to be independently verified.

• German authorities said they arrested an employee of the country’s foreign intelligence service on suspicion of treason for allegedly passing information to Russia. The suspect, a German citizen identified only as Carsten L, was arrested in Berlin on Wednesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement. It comes just days after Austria said it had identified a 39-year-old Greek citizen it suspected of spying for Russia.

• Vladimir Putin called Israel’s prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday to congratulate him on forming a government and to discuss the situation in Ukraine, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office. Netanyahu told Putin “he hopes a way will be found quickly to end the war [with Ukraine] and the suffering caused by it”, it said.