Kursk, North Korean soldiers among the dead on the Russian-Ukrainian front

Today's news: General Igor Kirillov, head of the nuclear and chemical weapons department, was killed by a bomb in Moscow;  Myanmar junta and resistance militias representatives  hold talks in China; British court rules Tamil migrants dentention on Diego Garcia island illegal; Iran suspends the implementation of the ‘hijab and chastity law’, contested by activists.

NORTH KOREA - RUSSIA - UKRAINE

The US stated that North Korean troops were killed while fighting against Ukrainian forces in the Russian Kursk region. These would be the first reported casualties since it emerged in October that North Korea had sent some 10,000 troops to reinforce Russia's war effort. In addition, Russian forces are reportedly burning the faces of the killed North Korean soldiers to hide their identities.

RUSSIA

A bomb hidden in an electric scooter killed a senior Russian general in charge of the nuclear protection forces in Moscow, the Russian Investigative Committee said. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia's nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops, was killed outside a residential building on Ryazansky Prospekt, at the beginning of a street about seven kilometres southeast of the Kremlin.

MYANMAR - CHINA

Representatives of the military junta and leaders of an insurgent militia held talks in China's Yunnan province as Beijing presses both sides to find a solution to the civil war in Myanmar. The talks in Kunming began on Sunday. The talks come more than a month after junta leader Min Aung Hlaing travelled to Kunming to meet the Chinese premier, his first trip to China since the coup.

SRI LANKA - GREAT BRITAIN

A British judge ruled the detention of Sri Lankan Tamil migrants in the remote British territory of Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands, in the Indian Ocean, illegal and earlier this month, after many complaints by human rights organisations, transferred ‘temporarily’ to London for humanitarian reasons. In 2021, dozens of Tamils rescued at sea had become the first to seek asylum on the island, home to a UK and US military base. They were held for years in a small, fenced-off camp.

IRAN

Iran's National Security Council suspended the implementation of the controversial ‘hijab and chastity law’, which was due to come into force on Friday. President Massoud Pezeshkian called the law ‘ambiguous and in need of reform’, signalling his intention to re-evaluate its measures. The proposed new law - which would introduce stiffer penalties for women and girls who expose certain body parts - had been strongly criticised by human rights activists.

GEORGIA

The new president of Georgia, Mikhail Kavelašvili, who is not recognised by the oppositions, said that ‘for Georgia it does not make sense to join the EU, to give up its values, its character, culture, language, faith, the defence of the homeland’, because Georgians want to be part of Europe ‘as they are, without being forced to join some organisation’, and for now on the part of the West ‘there is no desire to discuss it’.

TAJIKISTAN

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon announced that parliamentary elections for the Milli Medžlis and regional administrations will be held on 28 March 2025. There are seven officially registered political parties in the country, practically all loyal to the current regime, which have not yet declared their participation in the elections, in addition to some opposition movements that are regularly denied registration.

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