Turkish defence minister Yasar Guler has said the US is not seeking to leave the Nato alliance, which is adjusting to a shifting security landscape.

His comments came before Turkey will hosts 32 Nato leaders, as well as officials from the Gulf and Asia-Pacific region, on July 7-8.

The summit will come amid tensions within the alliance over burden-sharing, defence spending, and US complaints about allies’ lack of involvement in re-opening the Strait of Hormuz.

In written responses to questions, Guler said the summit would focus on bloc unity, evaluating allies’ increased defence spending, bolstering defence industry cooperation and increasing support for Ukraine. Ankara should be involved in European defence initiatives, he added.

“NATO continues to be an unparalleled and fundamental platform for Euro-Atlantic security and defence. We evaluate the period we are going through not as a crisis, but as a process of adjusting to the changing security environment,” Guler said.

He said the US had no intention of withdrawing from Nato, but that it wanted European allies and Canada to assume more responsibility for the security of Europe, which he said must include Ankara in its defence plans and initiatives.

North Korean troops have suffered more than 7,000 casualties while fighting alongside Russia, Ukrainian military intelligence.

The figures is significantly higher than previously reported by British and South Korean intelligence agencies, which estimated around 6,000 casualties between August 2024 and March 2025.

The updated figure, reported by Kyiv Independent, comes as Russia and North Korea deepen their military cooperation.

Germany should end a boycott of Russian oil and gas to bolster its flagging economy, the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, Alice Weidel, has said as she outlined the party’s ambitions to lead a national government.

Weidel said the AfD can win two key federal state elections in the coming months, describing them as milestones to securing the post of German chancellor as soon as the next national elections due by 2029.

“Cheap energy from Russia was the secret of the success of ‘Made in Germany’. We need it back,” Weidel said.

“The loss of this energy has set us back years. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost. It has made us dependent on the United States, which sells us energy at far higher prices.”

A six-month-old baby died after debris from a drone fell on a private building in the Moscow region on Tuesday, governor Andrei Vorobyov said on his Telegram channel.

The baby was taken out of the building with another child and two other survivors, but died on the way to hospital, the governor said.

Another man was killed overnight by a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said.

As we earlier reported, an explosion at a residential building in Monaco has left three people injured, including Ukrainian oligarch Vadym Yermolaiev, in an incident that the authorities say was almost certainly an attack targeting the tycoon.

Mr Yermolaiev and his wife have been left fighting for their lives in critical condition after the explosion, according to reports, while a 13-year-old child was also badly injured.

Authorities said four other people were suffering from shock and cuts as a result of broken windows.

Two adults and a child were taken to hospitals in France with injuries, minister of state Christophe Mirmand said.

The blast happened shortly before 9pm local time after a bag was left outside the entryway of a residence on Rue Révérend Père Louis Frolla, near the border with France.

He said it was “very likely an attack”, adding that French and Monaco authorities are searching for the attacker, whose motive is under investigation.

Following the apparent attack, a suspect was seen crossing the border into France on foot, and identified via video surveillance in both Monaco and the neighbouring French town of Beausoleil, Mirmand said.

Monaco’s leader Prince Albert II called it “an odious act” and said all the country’s services were mobilised to ensure security.

Russia may allow companies to temporarily produce gasoline and diesel with lower quality and allow lower quality imports, Kommersant daily newspaper said on Monday, as the country tries to ease the fuel crisis amid Ukraine’s attacks on its refineries.

The newspaper, ⁠citing a draft governmental document, said Russia may allow ⁠production of gasoline and ​diesel ⁠of the Euro-2 standard ‌with higher sulphur content and which has been banned since 2013, ‌for a year until ‌July 2027, as well as allowing it to be imported.

Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in the fifth year of the war, triggering widespread fuel shortages and price spikes as Kyiv tries to push Moscow to the negotiation table.

President Vladimir ‌Putin acknowledged on Sunday ​at a meeting with government ‌ministers and other ⁠officials that Ukrainian drone strikes ⁠had triggered fuel shortages in some ‌regions, but said ​Russia was dealing ‌with them.

Volodymyr Zelensky has ridiculed Russia’s stated goal of capturing Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, saying that the attempt has been made 15 times and failed.

“Since the start of the full-scale war, the Russian army has been given as many as 15 deadlines for capturing our Donetsk region. Russia’s political leadership remains obsessed with Donbas. They have entertained this delusion – that they would fully capture Donbas – 15 times already,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He recounted multiple deadlines Putin set for his troops to capture the region but has instead faced a war of attrition.

“In 2022, the deadlines were 31 March, then 9 May, 1 June, 15 September, and 31 December. In 2023, Putin set two more deadlines for capturing Donbas: 1 March, and then, when that failed again, they moved it to 31 December. In 2024, there were again two such deadlines,” Zelensky said.

He added that last year when the Russians wanted to convince Trump that Ukraine would “supposedly fall”, they had set three final dates to completely capture the Donetsk region.

He has warned that the deadline will be moved again if the war does not end.

“If Russia does not end its war, they will have to move this deadline again as well. If Putin wants to sacrifice another million of his soldiers to keep smashing against this wall, then the million Russians who have not yet been mobilised into the Russian army and are arguing in gas lines should think about what awaits them next,” Zelensky said.

In the weeks following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces ‌initially ⁠tried to advance on the capital Kyiv, but when they failed to complete that advance they withdrew and focused efforts on capturing Donbas.

Russia has captured all of the Luhansk region and large chunks of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Although Moscow’s forces are slowly moving westward through Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials say the advance has slowed considerably ​while Ukraine steps up its ​campaign of medium and ⁠long-range drone strikes.

The Ukrainian military has said it carried out a series of strikes on Russia and damaged three bridges, a Russian military logistics warehouse, multiple drone command posts and military communications facilities, its General Staff said yesterday.

The strikes were carried out “to reduce the military and economic potential of the Russian aggressor,” it said.

It added that Ukrainian forces struck a road bridge near occupied Novoazovsk in Donetsk and two railway bridges in occupied Luhansk oblast.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces were using the bridges to transport personnel, weapons, ammunition, and other military supplies to the front.

A Russian logistics warehouse near occupied Novosvitlivka in Luhansk oblast was also hit in the strikes.