Approximately 11,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to fight alongside Russian forces in the war against Ukraine, marking a significant expansion of foreign military involvement in the conflict.

Vladimir Putin used Russia's Victory Day parade on Red Square — notably stripped of military hardware and attended by only a handful of allied leaders amid heightened security — to frame the Ukraine war as a just struggle against a NATO-backed aggressor, while a US-brokered three-day ceasefire and 1,000-prisoner swap briefly paused hostilities at Donald Trump's urging.

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