Ukrainian troops have engaged North Korean units for the first time in Russia, an official said

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian troops engaged for the first time with North Korean units that were recently deployed to help Russia in its war with its neighbor, Ukraine’s defense minister said Tuesday.

Another official in Kiev said the Ukrainian military had 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 had engaged in combat, after a deployment that has given the war a new dimension as it approaches the 1,000-day milestone.

Neither claim could be independently confirmed.

Ukrainian and North Korean troops engaged in “small-scale” fighting that marked the beginning of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, Ukrainian 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, KBS quoted Umerov as saying. That makes it difficult to say whether there were any North Korean casualties, he said.

Umerov said five North Korean units, each consisting of about 3,000 troops, were expected to be deployed in the Kursk area.

Meanwhile, Andrii Kovalenko, head of the counter-intelligence branch of the Security Council of Ukraine, said that “the first North Korean troops have already been bombed, in the Kursk region.”

He gave no other details.

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

Intelligence assessments from the US, South Korea and Ukraine 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 troops are in Russia near the border with Ukraine.

More troops from North Korea’s 1.3 million-strong military could be slated for deployment to Russia, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international think tank.

The ramifications extend far beyond Europe, they say.

“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, East Asian troops are actively involved in a European conflict.”

North Korean troops, whose combat quality and combat experience are unknown, add to Ukraine’s worsening situation on the battlefield.

Ukrainian defenses, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region, have been cracking under the pressure of Russia’s costly but relentless offensive 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 media platform X on Tuesday.

He said Russia has superior troop numbers and, despite heavy losses, the Kremlin’s recruiting efforts are providing enough new troops to keep up the pressure.

Russia has held the battlefield initiative in Ukraine for the past year. Ukrainian officials have long complained that Western military support is taking too long to reach the country.

In early October, Russian forces drove Ukrainian troops out of Vuhledar, a town perched on a tactically significant hill in eastern Ukraine.

It was part of a key belt of Ukrainian defense in the east. Russia’s next targets are likely to be the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk and the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar.

Meanwhile, Russia continued its long-range airstrikes on civilian areas in Ukraine, authorities say.

An attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday morning killed six people and wounded 23 others, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the Russian attacks “must be stopped with strong actions”.

“A stronger position by (Ukraine’s Western) allies is needed,” he wrote on Telegram.