Kursk

Ukraine's unresolved decision regarding two North Korean prisoners of war who want to go to South Korea is giving Kyiv leverage to pressure Seoul into selling weapons. The soldiers, captured in 2025 in Kursk while supporting Russia, are considered South Korean nationals under Seoul's constitution.

Russia's Human Rights Chief reported that 171 detained Kursk residents have been returned from Ukraine, but the fate of 320 others remains unknown.

Over 160 displaced Kursk residents have returned from Ukraine, according to Yana Lantratova. She stated her office is verifying the exact number still held in Ukraine and plans to meet Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets.

Russian forces launched a massive aerial assault on Ukraine using 229 combat and decoy drones, with Ukrainian air defenses intercepting 212. Fourteen strike drones breached defenses, hitting 11 locations, including a fatal strike in Chernihiv's Koriukivka district that killed one person.

Ukraine's military struck multiple Russian targets on May 21-22, including air defense systems, ammunition depots, and command posts across occupied territories and within Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions. The General Staff reported attacks on drone control centers and Russian troop concentrations alongside river crossing targets.

Ukraine's deployment of autonomous weapons systems on the battlefield reveals that human-in-the-loop safeguards are becoming meaningless when target volumes and engagement tempo exceed human operators' cognitive and biological capacity. The country faces severe manpower shortages with 200,000 troops AWOL and units operating at 30-60% strength, while facing relentless Russian drone attacks that killed 70% of some brigades' operators. This operational reality is pushing Ukraine toward increasingly autonomous military systems despite ongoing normative debates about human control.