Ukrainian and North Korean forces enter combat in Kursk, according to first official reports

Ukrainian troops have clashed for the first time with North Korean units that were recently deployed to help Russia in the war with its neighbor, Ukraine’s Defense Minister said Tuesday. Another kyiv official said Ukraine’s military fired artillery at North Korean soldiers in the Russian border region of Kursk.

The comments were the first official reports that Ukrainian and North Korean forces have entered combat, following a deployment that has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone. Neither claim has been independently confirmed.

Ukrainian and North Korean troops engaged in “small-scale” fighting that resulted in the beginning of the direct participation of Pyongyang in the largest conflict in Europe since World War II, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in an interview with the South Korean public broadcaster KBS.

Umerov stated that he hopes they will be deployed in the Kursk area five North Korean unitseach of them composed of about 3,000 soldiers.

For his part, Andrii Kovalenko, head of the counter-disinformation branch of the Ukrainian Security Council, stated that “the first North Korean troops have already been bombed in the Kursk region” and did not give further details.

Western governments had expected North Korean soldiers to be sent to the Russian border region of Kursk, where a three-month-old incursion by the Ukrainian army is the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II and has embarrassed the Kremlin.

The Pentagon declared this Monday thatat least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russianear the border with Ukraine.

More troops from the 1.3 million-strong North Korean army may be deployed to Russia, according to an analysis published Tuesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international think tank. The ramifications extend far beyond Europe, the analysis continues.

Change in security relations between Europe and Asia

“Despite integration problems, such as communication barriers and different military doctrines, the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia represents a significant change in security relations between Europe and Asia,” the analysis states. “For the first time in generations, East Asian troops are actively participating in a European conflict.”

Las North Korean troops, whose quality and combat experience are unknownadd to the worsening situation in Ukraine on the battlefield.

Ukrainian defenses, especially in the eastern Donetsk regionare buckling under the pressure of the costly but relentless russian onslaught for months.

Russian advances have accelerated recently, with battlefield gains of up to 9 kilometers (more than 5 miles) in some parts of Donetsk, the UK Ministry of Defense said on social platform X on Tuesday.

He claimed that Russia has superior troop numbers and that, despite heavy casualties, the Kremlin’s recruiting campaign is providing enough new troops to keep up the pressure.

Russia takes the initiative on the battlefield

Russia has taken the lead on the battlefield in Ukraine over the past year. At the beginning of October, Russian forces expelled Ukrainian troops from Vuledara tactically important hilltop town in eastern Ukraine, which formed part of a key belt of Ukrainian defenses in the east.

Russia’s next targets are likely the Pokrovsk logistics center and the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar.

Meanwhile, Russia has maintained its long-range airstrikes against civilian areas in Ukraine, according to officials.

On Tuesday morning, an attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia left six dead and 23 wounded, according to the region’s governor, Ivan Fedorov.

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andrii Yermak, stated that Russian attacks “must be stopped with strong action” and that “a firmer position from (Ukraine’s Western) allies is necessary,” he wrote on Telegram.