North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s Kursk region have fought Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed adding that the clashes resulted in fatalities.
Zelensky said 11,000 North Korean soldiers are in the region, where Ukraine’s three-month military incursion into Russian territory has been halted .
“Eleven thousand North Korean soldiers or soldiers of the North Korean army are currently present on the territory of the Russian Federation in the border with Ukraine on the north of our country in the Kursk region,” Zelensky told reporters at the European Political Community summit in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday.
“Some of these troops have already taken part in hostilities against the Ukrainian military. Yes, there are already losses, this is a fact.”
He did not specify which side suffered the losses.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that a number of North Korean troops had been killed in a limited engagement with Russian and Ukrainian forces, citing senior US and Ukrainian officials.
The announcement of their use in combat comes as the United States and its allies weigh how to respond to the escalating military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public comments on the US election, saying he is ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect Donald Trump and noted that Trump’s comments on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine “deserve attention at the very least.”
“We’re ready,” the Russian leader said when asked whether he would hold talks with Trump, while addressing a discussion forum in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and praised his “courageous” conduct following an assassination attempt in July.
Trump’s election to a second term comes at a precarious moment in the war. Ukraine is under fierce pressure on the front lines, where its army chief has warned his forces are facing “one of the most powerful Russian offensives” since the start of the war.
The Ukrainian president said from Budapest Thursday that world leaders are not listening hard enough to his pleas to allow Kyiv to use long-range weapons as it faces a “new wave of escalation” involving “the army of another state in the war against Ukraine.”
US officials had warned that around 10,000 North Korean troops are in the Kursk region and would be expected to enter combat against Ukraine. But Zelensky fears a greater role for North Korean troops if its allies fail to exert more pressure on Putin.
“We believe that if we do not use appropriate weapons and political pressure on the Russian Federation, the next step may be much more use of the North Korean contingent,” he said.