Russia has hit Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said on Friday following an earlier assertion by Washington.
"There is no longer any disguise...as part of its outright genocidal war, the Russian Federation for the first time struck at the territory of Ukraine with missiles received from...North Korea," Podolyak wrote on X social media.
Earlier on Friday, state media quoted the governor of the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv as saying missiles produced outside Russia had been fired into the province at the end of December and beginning of January.
"(Russia) is attacking Ukrainians with missiles received from a state where citizens are tortured in concentration camps for having an unregistered radio, talking to a tourist, watching TV shows," Podolyak said.
Podolyak did not provide evidence for the missiles being North Korean. In its statement on Thursday, Washington cited declassified intelligence.
President Donald Trump said on Sunday the US Navy would immediately start blockading the Strait of Hormuz, raising the stakes after marathon talks with Iran failed to reach a deal to end the war, jeopardising a fragile two-week ceasefire.
Russia and Ukraine accused each other on Sunday of breaching the 32-hour ceasefire in their four-year war, reporting more than a thousand drone and shelling attacks just hours after the truce began on Saturday to mark Orthodox Easter.
At least 30 people were killed on Saturday in a stampede at the Laferriere Citadel in the northern countryside of Haiti, authorities said, warning that the death toll could rise.
A cyclone battered New Zealand's North Island on Sunday, cutting power to thousands of residents and forcing hundreds to evacuate, as officials warned conditions would worsen through the day.
Negotiations between the United States and Iran appeared to have concluded for now, Iran's government has announced early on Sunday, after a series of talks in Pakistan to end the six-week war between Washington and Tehran.