“The first North Korean soldiers have already been under fire in Kursk.” With this brief phrase, Andrii Kovalenko, a member of the National Security Council of Ukraine, announced this Monday that fighting is already taking place between his troops and those of North Korea. Kirilo Budanov, head of the intelligence services of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (GUR), assumed last week that in the first days of November part of the 10,000 soldiers that Pyongyang has assigned to Russia would already be on the battlefield. Neither Kovalenko nor other official sources have provided more information about this.
The governments of Ukraine and the United States had warned in the last two weeks that the North Korean contingent was being prepared to take part in the war imminently, specifically, in the Kremlin’s offensive to liberate part of the occupied Russian province of Kursk. through Ukraine since August. Sources from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Sumi region, the rearguard in the Kursk operation, assured Morning Express on October 26 that their artillery had already fired at facilities where it was believed there were North Korean troops.
These would be the first armed clashes with the troops of dictator Kim Jong-un in Kursk, although the GUR already assured that on October 3, a barracks in the province of Donetsk where North Korean engineers were supervising the use of ammunition provided was bombed. for Russian artillery. Pyongyang, according to kyiv and the South Korean government, has allegedly supplied more than three million shells for Russian cannons.
The GUR assured on November 2 that 7,000 North Koreans are already in Kursk, and that they have been armed with mortars, assault rifles, portable anti-tank missiles and scopes for night operations. This would indicate, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, that these soldiers will not be assigned to logistical tasks, but to combat missions.
The diary The Korean Heraldpublished on November 3 that the South Korean intelligence services have detailed in a parliamentary report that in exchange for military aid, North Korea will receive from Russia up to 700,000 tons of rice, technology to develop satellites, payment of the salary of the troops assigned in Kursk — $2,000 a month, according to this newspaper — and the commitment that Kremlin troops will enter combat if North Korea enters a war.
Josep Borrell, head of European diplomacy, met this Monday in Seoul with representatives of the South Korean Government to highlight the need for greater cooperation with Ukraine in defense. “Russian aggression against Ukraine is an existential threat,” Borrell said after his meeting with Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun: “No one better than the Republic of Korea to understand it. We are united in our support for Ukraine. I have encouraged them to increase this support.”
“Significant escalation”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded last week that Western allies not only increase their military assistance in the face of North Korean involvement in the invasion, but also make braver decisions because now “it is a war of two countries against one.” The North Korean entry into action in Kursk will allow Moscow to concentrate more troops in its advance in the Donetsk province. Zelensky has insisted that the United States and European powers such as Germany give him authorization to use long-range missiles on Russian soil, something that the White House and the German government refuse. The Ukrainian head of state has also demanded that his country be immediately invited to join NATO.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed this Monday in Berlin, during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, that Russia “always uses brutal means to pursue its imperialist objectives.” The chancellor has assured that Germany will continue to be the largest European supplier of weapons to Ukraine, but neither he nor Rutte have indicated that exceptional measures will be taken for kyiv to face the new situation. “North Korean troops stationed in Russia are a significant escalation [del conflicto] and it makes us more focused and determined so that Ukraine has what it needs to fight against the Russians, and against the North Koreans,” said the NATO Secretary General. “It is important that Ukraine receives the necessary help to face the new situation,” Scholz added.
