Washington and Kyiv have warned that North Korean troops are expected to enter combat alongside Russia’s army in the coming days, in what would be the first foray by a foreign military into the war launched by Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday raised the alarm over Moscow’s deepening military collaboration with Pyongyang, saying that his army was likely to face North Korean troops in the western Russian region of Kursk in “days, not months”.
The president’s comments were followed by a stark warning from US secretary of state Antony Blinken and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, who said that as many as 8,000 North Korean troops had been deployed to the Kursk region.