Ukraine Russia’s latest war: Some North Koreans ‘already in Ukraine’ as Kyiv names 160,000 troops

Two Western intelligence officials have said that a number of North Korean troops are already inside Ukraine, CNN reported.

“It appears that many of them are already in action,” the official said, without elaborating on a number of North Korean forces fighting in the Ukraine war.

The officials said they expect the number of North Korean soldiers inside Ukraine to grow as they complete training in eastern Russia and await deployment to the war front.

The United States confirmed yesterday that some North Korean soldiers were in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August and has hundreds of square kilometers of territory.

A few thousand more were on their way there, the Pentagon said.

Russia held a training exercise on Tuesday to simulate a “massive nuclear strike” in response to a first strike by an enemy, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said.

President Vladimir Putin launched the exercise at a critical time in the Ukraine war. The exercise, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said was a regular, planned event, involved the firing of ballistic and cruise missiles.

As part of the exercise, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was fired from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia to the Kura test range in Kamchatka in the Far East, the Defense Ministry said.

Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were launched from submarines in the Barents and Okhotsk seas. Tu-95MS strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons launched cruise missiles.

All the missiles hit their targets, the Defense Ministry said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the deployment of North Korean troops in the Ukraine conflict is likely to escalate the war Russia is waging.

His remarks were made in a phone call with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office yesterday.

The war will leave a greater impact on the security environment in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, Trudeau said, suggesting closer cooperation between the two countries on the development situation, according to Mr. Yoon’s office.

“Prime Minister Trudeau said the possibility of the Ukraine war becoming more violent has increased with the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, and this will have an impact on the overall security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific,” the office said.

Yoon said the pace of North Korean troop deployment in the Ukraine conflict had been faster than expected, creating a dangerous situation, his office said.

Vladimir Putin has not denied the involvement of North Korean troops in the war, but said it was Russia’s business how it implements a partnership agreement he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed in June.

Several explosions rocked Kiev early today and a fire broke out as a result of a Russian drone strike, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital said.

“Emergency services have been dispatched to the scene,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Reuters witnesses heard a series of explosions in what sounded like air defense units in operation.

Further details have been released about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s agreement with South Korea’s president to intensify contact between their nations at all levels to develop countermeasures and a strategy to respond to North Korea’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.

In a phone call with President Yoon Suk Yeol, Zelensky said the two leaders also agreed to strengthen the exchange of intelligence and expertise.

Zelensky said he shared data on the deployment of 3,000 North Korean troops to Russian training sites near the combat zone, where their presence is expected to increase to approximately 12,000.

“We agreed to strengthen the exchange of intelligence and expertise, intensify contacts at all levels, especially the highest, to develop an action strategy and countermeasures to counter this escalation and to engage our mutual partners in cooperation,” he said .

The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Tuesday that he had discussed the country’s victory plan and North Korean involvement in the war with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“Military aid to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia and increasing pressure on Moscow’s allies are essential,” he added X, commenting on his working trip to the United States.

The United States will not enforce any new limits on Ukraine’s use of American weapons if North Korea joins Russia’s war, the Pentagon has said.

When asked if the U.S. wants limits on what U.S. weapons can be used if it’s a bunch of North Korean soldiers, the Pentagon press secretary said, “No… If North Korea — if we see DPRK troops moving in and toward the front lines, I mean, they are fellow combatants in the war. And then they are fighting on these front lines, and the Ukrainians are defending their sovereign territory and pushing the Russians back,” she said.

“…But they would — if they’re in combat, you know, they’re fighting the Ukrainians, who are fighting for their sovereign territory. And we’ve made a commitment to Ukraine that we will continue to support them with whatever it takes,” she said.

Ms Singh added that North Korea is sending its soldiers into a war where Russian casualties and casualties are “upwards of 500,000 at this point”.

“It’s a calculation that you know the leadership of the DPRK is making to send their soldiers into battle,” she said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shrugged off Nato chief Mark Rutte’s comments about the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, noting that Pyongyang and Moscow signed a joint security pact last June.

But he stopped short on Monday of confirming that North Korean soldiers were in Russia. Mr. Lavrov claimed that Western military instructors have long been hidden in Ukraine to help its military use long-range weapons supplied by Western partners.

Russia test-fired missiles over distances of thousands of miles on Tuesday to simulate a “massive” nuclear response to an enemy first strike.

“Given the growing geopolitical tensions and the emergence of new external threats and risks, it is important to have modern and constantly ready strategic forces,” President Vladimir Putin said when announcing the exercise.

It came at a critical juncture in the Russia-Ukraine war, after weeks of Russian signals to the West that Moscow would respond if the United States and its allies allow Kiev to launch long-range missiles deep into Russia.

On Monday, NATO said North Korea has sent troops into western Russia, something Moscow has not denied.

In televised comments, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that the purpose of the exercise was to practice delivering “a massive nuclear attack by strategic offensive forces in response to a nuclear attack by the enemy”.

The exercise involved Russia’s full nuclear “triad” of land-, sea- and air-launched missiles.

A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia to Kamchatka, a peninsula in the Far East. Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were fired from submarines, and cruise missiles were fired from strategic bombers, the Defense Ministry said.