KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops have for the first time engaged 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 army fired artillery at North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk border region.
The comments were the first official reports that Ukrainian and North Korean forces have engaged in combat, following a deployment that has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone.
Neither claim could be independently confirmed.
The Ukrainian and North Korean troops engaged in “small-scale” fighting that amounted to the start of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS in an interview.
North Korean soldiers are mixed with Russian troops and are misidentified on their uniforms, Umerov was quoted as saying by KBS. That makes it hard to say whether there were any North Korean casualties, he said.
Umerov reportedly said he expects that five North Korean units, each consisting of about 3,000 soldiers, will be deployed to the Kursk area.
Meanwhile, Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council, said “the first North Korean troops have already been shelled, in the Kursk region.”
He provided no further details.
Western governments had expected that the North Korean soldiers would be sent to Russia’s Kursk border region, where a 3-month-old incursion by the Ukrainian army is the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II and has embarrassed the Kremlin.
U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments say up to 12,000 North Korean combat troops are being sent by Pyongyang to the war under a pact with Moscow.
The Pentagon said Monday that at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russia near Ukraine’s border.
More troops from North Korea’s 1.3-million-strong army may be slated for deployment in Russia, according to an analysis published Tuesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international think tank.
The ramifications extend far beyond Europe, it said.
“Despite integration challenges — including communication barriers and differing military doctrines — the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia represents a significant shift in European and Asian security relations,” the analysis said. “For the first time in generations, troops from East Asia are actively engaging in a European conflict.”
