Ukraine-Russia war live: North Korean troops deployed to frontline will ‘surely return in body bags’, US says

Number of North Korean soldiers inside Ukraine set to grow, Western intelligence official adds

Ukraine video claims to show North Korean soldiers lining up to collect Russia military gear

The US and South Korea have called on North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia that are reportedly already inside Ukraine.

“Should DPRK’s troops enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will surely return in body bags. So I would advise Chairman Kim to think twice about engaging in such reckless and dangerous behaviour,” Robert Wood, US envoy to the UN, said.

South Korea and its allies have claimed that North Korea has sent at least 11,000 soldiers to Russia, with more than 3,000 of them now deployed close to the frontlines in Ukraine, a presidential official in Seoul said on Wednesday.

The US said some of the North Korean soldiers were in Kursk, a border region where the Russian forces have been fighting off a Ukrainian incursion since August. A couple of thousand more were heading there, the Pentagon said.

This came as Ukraine drafted 160,000 more people in anticipation of grinding warfare and a frozen battle zone in the upcoming winter, the third such under Russian invasion.

Key Points

• North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine will ‘surely return in body bags’, US envoy says
• ‘If West can help Ukraine, why can’t North Korea help us?’ Russian envoy asks at UN
• North Korean troops already in action in Ukraine, official says
• South Korea may send team to Ukraine to monitor North Korean troops
• Trudeau warns over North Korea role in Ukraine war
• North Korea's top diplomat set to hold talks in Moscow

[30 October 2024 04:50 · Arpan Rai]

Are North Koreans troops in Ukraine? What we know about Kim Jong-un’s soldiers joining Russia’s war

The Pentagon has said that North Korea dispatched 10,000 troops to Russia, with some of them believed to be heading to the Kursk border to join Vladimir Putin’s forces in their invasion of Ukraine amid the biggest conflict Europe has seen since the Second World War.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said some North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region. The Russian forces are facing difficulty in pushing back Ukraine’s cross-border incursion launched on 6 August.

This came within hours of Nato secretary general Mark Rutte confirming recent Ukrainian intelligence reports of the presence of North Korean military units deployed to Kursk near the Ukrainian border.

[30 October 2024 04:30 · Rachel Hagan]

Chechen leader vows revenge after drone attack

The notorious Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has promised to take revenge for a drone attack that caused a fire at a military training academy in his south Russian region.

Ukraine has frequently struck Russia with drones in the course of the war, but Tuesday’s attack appeared to be the first against Chechnya.

Kadyrov told reporters in a video published by the Russian state news agency RIA: “They’ve bitten us - we will destroy them. In the very near future we’ll show them the kind of vengeance they’ve never even dreamt of.”

Earlier, Kadyrov posted on Telegram that the drone strike had set fire to the roof of what he said was an empty building at the “special forces university” in the city of Gudermes. There were no casualties, he said.

[30 October 2024 03:50 · Arpan Rai]

'Good many' of North Korean troops already in action in Ukraine, official says

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

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

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

The US 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 hold hundreds of square kilometres of territory.

A couple of thousand more were heading there, the Pentagon said.

[30 October 2024 03:30 · Rachel Hagan]

Russian drill simulates "massive" response to a nuclear strike

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

President Vladimir Putin kicked off the exercise at a critical point in the Ukraine war. The drill, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said was a regular, planned event, involved the launch of ballistic and cruise missiles.

As part of the exercise, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwest Russia to the Kura test range in Kamchatka in the far east, the defence ministry said.

Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were fired from submarines in the Barents and Okhotsk Seas. Tu-95MS strategic bomber planes, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, launched cruise missiles.

All the missiles reached their targets, the defence ministry said.

[30 October 2024 03:02 · Arpan Rai]

Trudeau warns over North Korea role in Ukraine war

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said the deployment of North Korean troops in the Ukraine conflict will likely escalate the war waged by Russia.

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

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

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

Mr 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 treaty he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed in June.

[30 October 2024 02:55 · Arpan Rai]

Blasts shake Kyiv after Russian drone attack, mayor says

Several explosions shook Kyiv early today and a fire broke out as a result of a Russian drone attack, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital said.

“Emergency services are dispatched to the site,” mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

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

[30 October 2024 02:30 · Rachel Hagan]

Ukraine and South Korea to enhance cooperation to counter North Korea

Further details have been released about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s agreement with South Korea’s president to step up contacts 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 exchanges of intelligence and expertise.

Zelensky said he shared data about the deployment of 3,000 North Korean troops to Russian training grounds near the combat zone, with their presence expected to increase to approximately 12,000.

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