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Ukraine's Zelensky confirms first combat engagement with North Korean troops

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, President of the Republic of Ukraine

06 November 2024 09:43 (UTC +04:00)

North Korean troops have entered combat with Ukrainian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling the engagement a "new page of instability in the world," APA reports citing UPI.

"I want to thank everyone in the world who reacted to the deployment of North Korean soldiers in Russia," Zelensky said in a video address on Tuesday."The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world," he said. "Together with the world, we must do everything to make this Russian step to expand the war -- to really escalate it -- to make this step a failure."

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told South Korean public broadcaster KBS that the North Korean troops had already engaged in small-scale skirmishes on the frontline area of Kursk.The soldiers are wearing Russian uniforms and being passed off as a Mongolian ethnic group from Siberia, Umerov said, making it difficult to identify any casualties or prisoners yet.

The minister said that Kyiv expects five units of roughly 3,000 North Korean soldiers to be deployed over the next few weeks along a front line stretching more than 900 miles, for a total of 15,000 troops.