North Korean troops being used in Kursk marks an escalation in war, says Zelensky
A significant number of North Korean troops are now being used in assaults inside Kursk Oblast, the pocket of Russian territory seized by Ukrainian forces back in August, President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced.
Russia has amassed 50,000 troops for its counter-offensive in Kursk, including 10,000 soldiers sent by Pyongyang.
Footage online shows what's said to be North Korean troops coming under attack by swarms of Ukrainian FPV drones – first person view drones which are uncrewed and extensively used by Ukrainian forces.
In one video, a drone flies over a large expanse of open ground littered with bodies said to be those of soldiers from North Korea - formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK.
Reports say as many as 30 DPRK soldiers were killed, with a further three missing.
And Ukraine's Military Intelligence Agency, the GUR, said a combined attack by Russian and North Korean troops led up to 200 men being lost.
In August, Ukraine made a lightning cross-border assault, seizing 500 square miles of Kursk Oblast. It was designed to pull Russian troops from other parts of the frontline and provide Kyiv with leverage in any future negotiations that Donald Trump may try to force once he becomes US President again in January.
After the initial shock of the incursion Russian forces have now retaken nearly half of it, with Vladimir Putin pushing his commanders to oust Ukrainian troops completely before Mr Trump's return.
North Korea sent an estimated 11,000 troops to Kursk to help, but so far, they've proved less than effective.
Ukraine is making extensive use of attack drones to hunt down DPRK positions and chase down individual men once they've been isolated from their units.
Footage online showed one North Korean soldier desperately trying to avoid being targeted. Nearby lie what appear to be other dead or wounded soldiers.
In another video a buggy said to contain North Korean troops careers down a snowy track in Kursk after it’s hit by a Ukrainian drone.
Ukrainian intelligence says Pyongyang is now sending in reinforcements from its 94th Special Forces Brigade.
It's thought Moscow wants to use North Korean troops to hold defensive lines, freeing up Russian brigades to fight elsewhere along the 600-mile frontline.
But the language barrier between Russian and North Korean troops has proved a problem, one that’s already costing lives.
Eight Chechen Spetsnaz troops were killed after DPRK soldiers mistook them for Ukrainians and opened fire.
With an army of 1.2 million men, North Korea has one of the largest militaries in the the world, but most of its troops lack any battlefield experience, with Ukraine the first combat Pyongyang's forces have seen since the Korean War.
Russia has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Koreans on its side.
But the Ukrainian President said the more active use of the troops was a new escalation in the war, and called for a global response.
Mr Zelensky plans to attend a meeting with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Nato and the EU in Brussels on Wednesday.
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