North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has confirmed he will attend celebrations in Russia in May marking the Soviet victory over Germany in World War Two, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, citing a Kremlin spokesman.
Russia prevented the U.N. Security Council on Saturday from criticizing statements by pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels and condemning an upsurge in violence that has claimed dozens of lives in Ukraine, council diplomats said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed "criminal orders" by Ukrainian leaders on Friday for a surge in fighting in east Ukraine, and Russian-backed separatists struck a bellicose tone in ruling out seeking more peace talks.
Nine years after former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in a plush London hotel in what has been described as Russian "state-sponsored nuclear terrorism", a public inquiry into his death finally begins in the British capital next week.
