South Korea's spy agency said Wednesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's recent revelation of a supposedly secret transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to the South was likely meant to generate public support in this Asian democracy for greater assistance to Ukraine.

Zelensky's disclosure during his U.N. speech last week of the transfer of the captured soldiers has stunned South Korea and drawn strong protests. Seoul called on Kyiv to apologize and explain the violation of what it said was a nondisclosure agreement about the transfer. Ukraine denied agreeing to any such deal.

Housing protesters camped out in Madrid's most iconic square awoke from their third night in the open to await details from the Spanish government on what it's doing to tackle a crisis that has brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets in recent days.

The protests and the encampment in Puerto del Sol followed the eviction of María del Carmen Abascal, 87, who was carried out on a stretcher from the apartment where she had lived for seven decades.

Russia fired ballistic missiles and dozens of jet-powered drones at Kyiv, Ukraine's air force said Tuesday, as Moscow seeks to make Ukraine buckle under the pressure of day-and-night bombardment of its capital and other cities.

The Russian onslaught has used new jet-powered drones that fly too fast and too high for Ukrainian ground-based air defenses to shoot down.

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced a "dangerous escalation" by Russia after Estonia accused it of being behind an August arson attack on a drone manufacturer.

"The multiplication of these hostile acts represents a dangerous escalation by Russia, which will only lead it into a dead end," Macron said, recalling a recent incident in Germany where an explosive-laden drone was found near an airport.

There is doom. There is gloom. There is mistrust. There is insistence upon shared power and the prevention of political and military bullying. And there is a growing cry for permanent seats at the table of power — for island nations threatened by climate change and, more than anything, for Africa.

These things have often been true in recent years when world leaders orate at one another during their annual meeting at the U.N. General Assembly, which concluded Monday. This year, though, the discourse seemed even more urgent than usual. Across the words of more than 150 speeches, two things emerged as clear: Many leaders deeply want the world body to work. And many have concluded that it isn't.

South Korea's military on Monday said explosions that injured three of its officers last week inside the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas were probably caused by North Korean mines.

The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the preliminary finding after inspecting the site with the U.S.-led United Nations Command.

Police were holding five men on Monday and examining suspected explosives found near a U.S.-operated air force base in England, as counterterror detectives investigated whether the arrests foiled an attempted attack linked to Iran.

The men were detained early Sunday after three vans were spotted near RAF Fairford, a U.K.-owned base that has been used by American bombers during decades of conflicts in the Middle East.

Russia's round-the-clock bombardment of targets in Ukraine killed at least seven people and wounded more than 50 others, officials said Monday.

Moscow's forces pounded apartment buildings, offices, data centers and a building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in downtown Kyiv.

South Korea called for an official apology from Ukraine after the Ukrainian president revealed what Seoul says was supposed to be a secret transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea.

Volodymyr Zelensky told the U.N. General Assembly last week that Ukraine had recently sent the men to South Korea after capturing them on a Ukraine-Russia battlefield in early 2025. The two are among thousands of North Korean soldiers sent to support Russia's war against Ukraine.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that he had sent envoys around the world to pressure countries to economically isolate Iran, hailing new restrictions targeting the country's airlines and banks.

"At my direction, teams were dispatched across the globe to engage with countries and demand action against the Iranian regime," he said on X. "These efforts are delivering results."