Key Points
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said 11,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia.
- North Korean and Ukrainian troops have had their first military engagement, Ukraine’s defence minister has said.
- Russia has not confirmed North Korean troops are on its territory, but Vladimir Putin did not deny the reports.
“The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world,” he said.
Zelenskyy said that Ukraine, acting with the rest of the world, had to “do everything so that this Russian step to expand the war with real escalation fails”.
Engagement was ‘small’, defence minister says
The report, with excerpts from the interview, quoted Umerov as saying the engagement was small and not yet systematic in terms of mobilising soldiers.
Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov told South Korean TV that a “small engagement” had occurred between North Korean and Ukrainian soldiers. Source: AAP / Lyashonok Nina / Ukrinform / ABACA / PA
South Korea’s defence ministry said more than 10,000 North Korean troops had arrived in Russia, with a “significant number” in the frontline areas, including the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces staged an incursion in August.
The KBS report said Umerov warned identification and other procedures would take time as the Russian military was trying to pass off the North Koreans as Buryats, a Mongolian ethnic group from Siberian regions.
Russia has not acknowledged that North Korean troops are on its territory, but President Vladimir Putin did not deny reports of their presence. He said it was up to Russia how to implement its defence pact with Pyongyang.
