The Russian education ministry has made basic military training mandatory in the country’s secondary school curriculum and it will be taught from September this year, the British defence ministry said today.

“In recent weeks, the Russian ministry of education has provided more detail on the rollout of the previously announced plan to include basic military training in Russia’s secondary school curriculum,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update.

It added that the module will be included within the ‘Basics of Life Safety’ course and teach students about “training with AK series assault rifles and hand grenades, military drill and salutes, and the use of personal protective equipment.”

“The lessons will become mandatory from 01 September 2023. In addition, in December 2022, the ministry of science and higher education announced a ‘military training basics’ programme for university students,” the ministry said.

It added that the “initiatives highlight the increasingly militarised atmosphere in wartime Russia, as well as being a (likely deliberate) evocation of the Soviet Union: similar training was mandatory in schools up to 1993.”

German arms-maker Rheinmetall is preparing to significantly boost the output of tank and artillery munitions to satisfy strong demand in Ukraine and the West, its CEO Armin Papperger said.

He added that Rheinmetall may also start producing HIMARS multiple rocket launchers in Germany.

“We can produce 240,000 rounds of tank ammunition (120mm) per year, which is more than the entire world needs,” Mr Papperger said in an interview with Reuters.

He added that the capacity for the production of 155mm artillery rounds can be ramped up to 450,000 to 500,000 per year which would make Rheinmetall the biggest producer for both kinds of ammunition.

In 2022, Rheinmetall made some 60,000 to 70,000 rounds each of tank and artillery shells, according to Papperger, who said production could be boosted immediately.

His remarks comes just days before Germany’s defence industry bosses are due to meet new defence minister Boris Pistorius for the first time.

The US has pledged to send 31 of its M1 Abram battle tanks, worth an estimated $400m, to Ukraine to help the resistance fight back against the Russian onslaught as the one-year anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion approaches.

Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, said the decision by Joe Biden’s administration amounted to “another blatant provocation” against Moscow, pledged that the tanks would be destroyed and warned the West it would come to regret the “delusion” that Ukraine could ever win the day.

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Donald Trump has said he would build an “impenetrable dome” to protect the US from nuclear missile attacks as he also claimed he could end the Russian invasion of Ukraine “within 24 hours.”

The one-term president released a video saying that foreign powers were now openly “using the nuclear word all the time” because “they have no respect for our leadership.”

Mr Trump added that “it is a word you are never allowed to use” and insisted it had never been said when he was in the White House.

North Korea criticised the US decision to send tanks to Ukraine and called it an “unethical crime” as it continued its charge against the war-hit country’s ally for a second day.

“The US is working hard to supply such offensive weapons as (main battle tanks) to Ukraine at any cost in disregard of the just concern and criticism of the international community,” Kwon Chung-keun, director of US affairs at North Korea’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

“This is an unethical crime aimed at keeping the international situation unstable,” the official said.

The top official also derided Washington’s allegations that North Korea has provided arms to Russia as a “groundless rumor” to justify its own military aid to Ukraine.

The baseless claims of North Korea-Russia arms deals are a “grave provocation that can never be allowed” and perpetuating them will bring a “really undesirable result”, Mr Kwon added.

Ukraine’s military has said its forces repelled an attack in the area of Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region amid claims from Russia’s Wagner private military group of taking control of the village.

“Units of Ukraine’s defence forces repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the areas of... Blahodatne... in the Donetsk region,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said this morning, confirming the fighting that took place on Saturday.

The Ukrainian army said its forces repelled Russian attacks in the areas of 13 other settlements in the Donetsk region.

This comes just hours after Russia’s proxy mercenary Wagner Group — termed by the United States as a transnational criminal organisation — said that its units had taken control of Blahodatne.

While the Wagner has made premature claims of capturing territory in eastern Ukraine, including Soledar recently, it is not immediately clear what part of the region remains under Ukraine’s active control.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine remains critical over the weekend.

“The situation at the front, and in particular in the Donetsk region – near Bakhmut and Vuhledar, remains extremely acute. The occupiers are not just storming our positions – they are deliberately and methodically destroying these towns and villages around them. Artillery, aviation, missiles,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He added: “The Russian army has no shortage of means of destruction. And it can be stopped only by force. Our soldiers, who are defending the areas in Donetsk region, are real heroes.”

More than 66,500 Russian war crimes, crimes of aggression have been recorded in Ukraine, the war-hit country’s prosecutor general’s office said on Saturday.

The Russian military has committed 66,743 war crimes and crimes of aggression in Ukraine after invading the country last February and launching a full-scale war.

At least 459 children and injured at least 917 since 24 February, the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies said.

After months of pleas and international pressure, Germany and the US have now agreed to supply Ukraine with tanks – a decision that was hailed by a top presidential aide to Volodymyr Zelensky as “a real punching fist of democracy” against Russia’s invasion.

While unlikely to turn the tide of the war in their current numbers, the roughly three battalions worth mark a gear change in Nato’s support for Kyiv – as underscored by the Kremlin’s accusations of direct Western involvement and a renewed flurry of nuclear threats from Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

The tanks themselves – including the Leopard 2, M1 Abrams and Challenger 2 designs – are generally viewed as more potent than most of the Soviet and Russian-made vehicles which, to the surprise of those who believed tanks to be practically defunct, have so far played a central role in Europe’s largest land war in decades.

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Ukraine and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks over the supply of long-range missiles and military jets, a top aide to president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Mykhailo Podolyak said Ukraine’s allies “understand how the war is developing” and the need to supply planes capable of providing cover for the tanks which have been pledged this week.

He continued: “We must speak reasonably and tell them [allies], for example, ‘This and this will reduce fatalities, this will reduce the burden on infrastructure. This will reduce security threats to the European continent, this will keep the war localised’.”

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