Zelenskiy, minister acknowledge clashes with North Korean forces

6/11/2024 6:09

        President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on
        Tuesday the Ukrainian military's first clashes with North Korean
        troops had opened the way to more "instability in the world."
        
        Defence Minister Rustem Umerov confirmed, in an interview
        with South Korean television, that the first armed engagements
        had occurred with North Korean troops in the more than
        2-1/2-year-old war.
        
        "The first battles with North Korean soldiers have opened a
        new chapter of instability in the world," Zelenskiy said in his
        nightly video address.
        
        Zelenskiy thanked those in the world who, he said, had
        reacted to the North Korean troops "not just with words...but
        who are preparing actions to support our defence".
        
        "We must, together with the world do everything so that
        this Russian step to expand the war with real escalation fails.
        That this step of his (Russian President Vladimir Putin) becomes
        a losing one -- both for him and for North Korea."
        
        South Korea's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that more
        than 10,000 North Korean troops had arrived in Russia, with a
        "significant number" in the frontline areas, including the Kursk
        region, where Ukrainian forces staged an incursion in August.
        
        Zelenskiy quoted intelligence sources as saying on
        Monday that 11,000 North Koreans were in Russia. The Pentagon
        said at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Kursk, but it
        could not corroborate suggestions that they had been engaged in
        combat.
        
        Umerov, the defence minister, told South Korea's KBS
        television in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that there had
        been a "small engagement" with the North Korean troops.
        
        "Yes, I think so. It is (an) engagement," Umerov said in
        English, when asked if a clash had occurred.
        
        The report, with excerpts from the interview, quoted
        Umerov as saying that the engagement was small and not yet
        systematic in terms of mobilising soldiers.
        
        It said Umerov told the interviewer that identification
        and other procedures would take time as the Russian military was
        trying to pass off the North Koreans as Buryats, a Mongolian
        ethnic group from Siberian regions.
        
        Umerov said he expected a sharp rise in the number of
        North Koreans deployed.
        
        "(There are) already contacts, but after a couple of
        weeks, we would see a more significant number and upon this, we
        will review it and analyse it," he said.
        
        Plans had called for North Korean troops to undergo a
        month's training, he said, but that "is now being shortened
        to...two weeks or one week so that they could get engagement in
        the battlefield".
        
        KBS quoted Umerov as saying that a total of 15,000
        troops could be deployed along northeastern, eastern and
        southeastern parts of the 1,000-km-long (600-mile) front line in
        Ukraine.
        
        Russia has declined to acknowledge that North Korean
        troops are on their 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.