The air assault came as most of the more than 10,000 North Korean troops sent by Pyongyang to help Moscow in the war are engaged in combat in Russia's Kursk border region, according to the Pentagon. A Ukrainian army incursion into Kursk three months ago has succeeded in holding a broad area of land and has embarrassed the Kremlin.

The most consistent supporters of Ukraine from the previous Donald Trump administration will not be present in the current one, as Volodymyr Dubovyk, director of the Center for International Studies at Odesa National University,