North Korean Soldiers Deployed By Russia Engage In First Clash With Ukraine

The engagement was limited, the Ukrainian official told the New York Times and was likely meant to examine weaknesses in the Ukrainian side. 

Ukrainian troops have clashed with North Korean soldiers for the first time after they were recently deployed to Russia to help Moscow with the war.

According to the BBC, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov on Tuesday said a "small group" of North Korean soldiers were attacked. The North Korean troops were engaged in combat in the Kursk region of Russia on November 4. 

The engagement was limited, the Ukrainian official told the New York Times and was likely meant to examine weaknesses in the Ukrainian side. 

The deployment has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone. As per the Associated Press (AP), the small-scale fighting amounted to the start of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, Ukraine’s Defense Minister said. 

Umerov noted that the North Korean soldiers were mixed with Russian troops and wore misidentified uniforms, which made it challenging to say whether there were any North Korean casualties. He reportedly mentioned that expects five North Korean units, each consisting of about 3,000 soldiers, will be deployed to the Kursk area.

Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council, reportedly said, “the first North Korean troops have already been shelled, in the Kursk region.” 

Intelligence assessments from the US, South Korea and Ukraine indicate that Pyongyang has deployed up to 12,000 North Korean combat troops to the war, under a pact with Moscow, as per AP. On Monday, the Pentagon that at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russia near Ukraine’s border.

In a daily video address on Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Ukraine "together with the world... [to do] everything to make this Russian step toward expanding the war... a failure. Both for them, and for North Korea."

On Friday, Zelenskyy urged its allies to stop “watching” and to take steps from North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia joined the battlefield, the country’s army chief warned that his troops were facing “one of the most powerful offensives” by Moscow since the all-out war started more than two years ago.

Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a preemptive Ukraine strike on locations where the North Korean troops are being trained, stating that Kyiv knew their locations. However, he noted that Ukraine would require authorisation from its allies to use Western-supplied long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia, as per AP. “But instead … America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.