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A Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off on Friday on a mission to bring back to Earth a crew stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) by a leak in the cooling system of their original return capsule, Russian news agencies reported.

Tass news agency said the unmanned Soyuz MS-23 lifted off from Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan and had been placed in orbit. It was due to dock with the ISS on Saturday at 0101 GMT.

Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and U.S. astronaut Francisco Rubio had been due to end their mission in March. They were left stuck in space after the cooling system of their Soyuz MS-22 capsule started leaking two months ago.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said this week the trio would now return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-23 in September. The damaged MS-22 spacecraft is now scheduled to land without a crew in March.

Both NASA and Roscosmos believe last year's leak on the MS-22 spacecraft was caused by a micrometeoroid - a tiny particle of space rock - hitting the capsule at high velocity.

A similar impact is also believed to have caused a separate leak this month on the cooling system of the Progress MS-21 cargo ship, taken out of orbit last week.

Tass said 430 kilogrammes (about 950 pounds) of cargo was sent aboard the replacement craft, including medical equipment, scientfic instruments, water, food and cleaning supplies. Tass quoted a Russian space official as saying the amount of food sent was three times the amount normally dispatched for such missions.

The leaks have prompted Roscosmos and NASA to rearrange their schedules and postpone planned space walks. (Reuters)

North Korean state media marked the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine by blaming the crisis on NATO and calling America's involvement a "trail to self-destruction."

In a commentary carried by state news agency KCNA on Thursday on the eve of the Feb. 24 anniversary, international affairs critic Kim Yoo-chul said the conflict in Ukraine is the "inevitable product of coercion and hegemony" by the United States and its allies.

The Ukraine war, the biggest land conflict in Europe since World War Two, has displaced millions, left Ukrainian cities, towns and villages in ruins and disrupted the global economy.

North Korea has forged closed ties to Russia since the war began, publicly supporting Moscow in statements as well as at the United Nations.

"If Ukraine had not blindly taken part in the U.S. policy of anti-Russian confrontation, if it had abandoned the dirty demons of the United States and promoted reconciliation and unity with its neighbours, the situation would not have reached the point where it is as bad as it is now," Kim wrote.

"The current situation in Ukraine once again proves that there can be no peace in the world at any time unless the United States' policy of force, tyranny, and greedy aggression... is ended."

The Kremlin says it regards NATO, which could soon expand to include Sweden and Finland, as an existential threat to Russia.

The United States has accused North Korea of providing weapons to Russia, which both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied. (Reuters)

China's military is learning from Russia's invasion of Ukraine that any attack on Taiwan would have to be swift to succeed, but the Taiwan Strait would make that challenging, the island's defence minister said on Friday.

The possible impact of the war on China's military thinking on Taiwan and how China could attack the island, which Beijing sees as sovereign Chinese territory, has been widely debated in official circles in Taipei.

Taiwan Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the Chinese military would have taken notes from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began one year ago with Russia failing to take Kyiv in the war's opening days.

"The Russia-Ukraine war has brought great lessons for the them - they will definitely seek speed," Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of parliament in Taipei, referring to China's military.

He said even if Chinese forces were planning a speedy attack they would face difficulties trying to take the island in a sudden move as they would have to cross the Taiwan Strait that separates the two.

"They would still have to overcome this," Chiu said. "It wouldn't be as fast as a week or two."

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and continues to mount almost daily military patrols near the island.

"I've said it before - as soon as the guns sound we will keep going to the end. But we absolutely will not provoke."

Taiwan's democratically-elected government says only Taiwan's people have the right to decide their future.

While Ukraine has won widespread public support in Taiwan, and Taiwan's government has sent humanitarian aid, China has refused to condemn Russia and the two countries announced a "no limits" partnership shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine.

China has said that it is a "naked double standard" to seek to conflate the issues of Taiwan and Ukraine as the island has always been part of China and is entirely a domestic matter. (Reuters)

U.S. and South Korean officials took part in a simulated "table-top" exercise that focused on the possibility of North Korea using a nuclear weapon, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Nuclear-armed North Korea launched an unprecedented number of missiles last year, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. On Monday it launched two missiles into the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. and South Korean officials have also warned the North could be preparing for its first test of a nuclear device since 2017.

This was the 8th U.S. and South Korean deterrence strategy committee table-top exercise, known as DSC TTX, and the first edition since they agreed last year to hold the drills annually.

"Given the DPRK's recent aggressive nuclear policy and advancements in nuclear capabilities, the (table top) scenario focused on the possibility of the DPRK's use of nuclear weapons," a Pentagon statement said, using the acronym of the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The U.S. and South Korea delegations focused their discussion on Alliance deterrence to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and potential options for responding to DPRK nuclear weapons use," the statement added, but did not say specifically what scenarios were played out.

Seoul's defense ministry said the allies reaffirmed their readiness for any North Korean nuclear threats, and agreed to continue reinforcing intelligence sharing, crisis consultation, joint planning and execution of extended deterrence.

"The U.S. side stressed that any use of nuclear weapons by North Korea against the United States or its allies and friends would be unacceptable and result in an end of its regime," the ministry said in a statement.

After the simulated exercise was carried out at the Pentagon on Wednesday, officials from both countries visited Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.

"The delegations discussed how best to leverage (South Korea's) non-nuclear capabilities to support nuclear deterrence against DPRK nuclear threats," the statement added.

Since taking office in May, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has been pushing to bolster confidence in American extended deterrence - its military capability, especially nuclear forces, to deter attacks on its allies - as Pyongyang strives to secure its capacity to strike anywhere in the United States.

In November, Yoon warned of an unprecedented joint response with allies if North Korea goes ahead with a nuclear test. (Reuters)