MADRID Dec. 14 () –
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, assured this Saturday that North Korean troops have already begun to fight alongside Russian forces in the Russian region of Kursk, the scene for months of a Ukrainian incursion that Moscow has not yet repelled.
Russia’s latest report on operations in Kursk does not mention the use of these forces and is limited to announcing the death of 200 Ukrainian soldiers during Russian operations in eleven locations in the region, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The North Korean presence has been under study for months by Ukraine’s Western allies. The US Department of Defense estimates that there are about 11,000 North Korean soldiers present in the region, but sources from the Bloomberg agency multiply this estimate tenfold.
Its deployment, Ukraine’s allies understand, is a consequence of the security pact signed in June by the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un.
In a speech to the population, Zelensky announced that he already has in his hands “preliminary data on the use of North Korean soldiers, a significant number of them, by Russia in its assaults.”
The Ukrainian president added that Russian forces are integrating the Ukrainian military into “combined assault forces” that at the moment “are only operating in Kursk” although “the use could be extended to other parts of the front.”
“We will defend ourselves, even against these North Koreans,” the Ukrainian president has promised, “and we will continue to act in coordination with all our partners to stop this war, decisively and towards a peace with guarantees.”
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