Troops and weapons, including suicide drones, to be shipped to Russia to support war against Ukraine, say Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff

Hello and welcome to the Ukraine live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest from the conflict.

We start with news that South Korea’s military said on Monday that it has detected signs of North Korea preparing to send more troops and weapons, including suicide drones, to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin met the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, in the Kremlin on Sunday, a rare visit by a European Union leader to Moscow, as a contract allowing for Russian gas to transit through Ukraine nears expiry.

Russia has captured two more villages in east Ukraine, the latest territorial gains for Moscow’s advancing army. The defence ministry said on Telegram on Sunday that its troops had “liberated” the villages of Lozova in the north-eastern Kharkiv region and Krasnoye – called Sontsivka in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy told Ukraine’s diplomats on Sunday that the country will have to fight to persuade allies to allow it to take up Nato membership, but has described the goal as “achievable” as it searches for security guarantees to protect it from Russia.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said he considered the sometimes harsh criticism of German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be unjustified, news wire DPA reported. Although Germany has been a vital ally of Ukraine, its hesitation in providing long-range Taurus cruise missiles has been a source of frustration in Kyiv, which is battling a foe armed with a powerful array of long-range weaponry.

Russian forces executed five Ukrainian prisoners of war, Ukraine’s parliamentary commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets, claimed on Sunday. Russian troops shot the five unarmed soldiers after capturing them, Lubinets alleged on Telegram, without providing more details.

A video purporting to show the Russian capture of an Australian man fighting for Ukraine on the war’s eastern front has prompted urgent inquiries by Australia’s government. The man, who identified himself as Oscar Jenkins, is struck several times and questioned roughly in Russian in the video, which is circulating on Telegram.

Ukrainian drones struck a major Russian fuel depot for the second time in just over a week on Sunday, according to a senior Russian regional official, as part of a “massive” cross-border attack on fuel and energy facilities that Kyiv says supply Moscow’s military.