Ukraine Russia war latest: Kyiv reports first clashes with North Korean troops on frontline

North Korean troops engaged in clashes against Ukrainian forces that are fighting in the Russian Kursk region, the New York Times reported late last night, citing an unnamed senior US official and an unnamed senior Ukrainian official.

The engagement was limited and likely meant to probe the Ukrainian lines for weaknesses, the Ukrainian official said. The Ukrainian official added that the North Korean troops fought together with Russia’s 810 Separate Naval Infantry Brigade.

The US official told the newspaper that a significant number of North Korean troops were killed.

The office of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian defence ministry, the Russian defence ministry, the Pentagon and the US Department of State have not issued a comment on the report.

Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov confirmed the first clash, describing it as a “small-scale” skirmish, had taken place between Ukrainian and North Korean troops.

“Yes, I think so. It is (an) engagement,” Mr Umerov told South Korea’s KBS television in an interview broadcast yesterday, when asked if a clash had occurred. He said the engagement was small for now, but more are expected as the number of North Koreans deployed grows.

Ukrainian troops launched an incursion into Russia’s border Kursk region on 6 August, taking a number of settlements under control in the first such deployment onto the Russian territory since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine’s air defence units destroyed 38 Russian drones overnight, its air force said this morning.

Another 22 Russian drones were lost over the Ukrainian territory and its airspace, the air force said on Telegram, without providing further details.

The air force has said before that lost drones are usually intercepted by electronic warfare. The air force also said that Russia launched two missiles on the southern Odesa region late last night.

It’s not only the American public holding its breath in anticipation as the vote projections for the Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump presidential contest roll in. Russian president Vladimir Putin is among those watching closely, with much at stake in the outcome.

The Kremlin seems undecided about whom it would prefer to see as the next US president. Putin clearly understands that, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the US stance toward Russia is likely to remain unfriendly. In fact, some animosity between Trump and the Kremlin has been playing out over the past few months.

Regardless of who wins, the Kremlin has reportedly developed two alternative plans for resolving the military conflict with Ukraine — one in the event that Trump wins and another for if Harris becomes president.

Svetlana Satchkova writes:

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has called North Korea’s troops fighting in Europe a “turning point”, warning the world of a “deeply dangerous” moment.

“This dangerous expansion of the conflict escalates the war and demonstrates that our security is not regional, it is global,” he wrote for Politico.

“These deepening military and economic ties between a reckless Russia and an emboldened North Korea don’t just threaten Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security, they are deeply dangerous for global security,” the Nato chief said.

Calling the Russian invasion ill-judged, Mr Rutte said: “On every front, Putin is failing to achieve his strategic objectives through this illegal and ill-judged war of aggression. While we seek a just and lasting end to the conflict, he’s only prolonging and expanding it.

“President Vladimir Putin’s litany of failures since starting this senseless war has only made Russia more reliant on its authoritarian friends in Asia: China, Iran and North Korea,” he said.

Putin’s forces are believed to be losing hundreds of troops a day, with Ukrainian estimates going as high as 1,200 to 1,500, so the more than 10,000 troops South Korea believes are in Russia would last two weeks or so at that rate.

“In the big picture, even 12,000 soldiers don’t affect the general situation of the war significantly,” says Emil Kastehelmi, who runs the Black Bird Group, which tracks the war in Ukraine.

The training period before North Korean soldiers join the fight in Vladimir Putin’s invasion has been cut short, Kyiv says.

North Korean troops were expected to undergo a month’s training, Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov said, but that “is now being shortened to… two weeks or one week so that they could get engagement in the battlefield”.

North Korean personnel will finish deploying within a few weeks once they complete training in the Russian Far East, experts have said.

A total of 15,000 troops could be deployed along northeastern, eastern and southeastern parts of the 1,000km (600-mile) frontline in Ukraine, according to Mr Umerov.

Russia has declined to acknowledge that North Korean troops are operating in its territory, but Putin last week did not deny reports of their presence. He said it was up to Russia how to implement its defence pact with Pyongyang.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the first battles between the Ukrainian military and North Korean troops “open a new page in instability in the world” after his defence minister said a “small engagement” had taken place.

Mr Zelensky, in his nightly video address, thanked those in the world who, he said, had reacted to the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia last month “not just with words … but who are preparing actions to support our defence”.

“The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world,” he said.

He said that Ukraine, acting with the rest of the world, had to “do everything so that this Russian step to expand the war with real escalation fails.”

Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov confirmed in an interview with South Korean television that the first engagement had occurred with North Korean troops, an escalation in a conflict that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.