Ukrainian troops have for the first time engaged with North Korean units that were recently deployed to help Russia in the war with its neighbour, Ukraine’s defence minister said.

Another Kyiv official said Ukraine’s army fired artillery at North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk border region.

The comments were the first official reports that Ukrainian and North Korean forces have engaged in combat, following a deployment that has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone.

Russian soldiers at an undisclosed location in Ukraine
Russian soldiers at an undisclosed location in Ukraine (Russian Defence Ministry Press Service via AP)

Neither claim could be independently confirmed.

The Ukrainian and North Korean troops engaged in “small-scale” fighting that amounted to the start of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War, Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov told South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS in an interview.

North Korean soldiers are mixed with Russian troops and are misidentified on their uniforms, Mr Umerov was quoted as saying by KBS.

That makes it hard to say whether there were any North Korean casualties, he said.

Mr Umerov reportedly said he expects that five North Korean units, each consisting of about 3,000 soldiers, will be deployed to the Kursk area.

Meanwhile, Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation branch of Ukraine’s Security Council, said “the first North Korean troops have already been shelled, in the Kursk region”.

He provided no further details.

Western governments had expected that the North Korean soldiers would be sent to Russia’s Kursk border region, where a three-month-old incursion by the Ukrainian army is the first occupation of Russian territory since the Second World War and has embarrassed the Kremlin.

US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments say up to 12,000 North Korean combat troops are being sent by Pyongyang to the war under a pact with Moscow.

The Pentagon said on Monday that at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russia near Ukraine’s border.

More troops from North Korea’s 1.3 million-strong army may be slated for deployment in Russia, according to an analysis published on Tuesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international think tank.

The ramifications extend far beyond Europe, it said.

“Despite integration challenges – including communication barriers and differing military doctrines – the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia represents a significant shift in European and Asian security relations,” the analysis said.

“For the first time in generations, troops from East Asia are actively engaging in a European conflict.”

The North Korean troops, whose fighting quality and battle experience is unknown, are adding to Ukraine’s worsening situation on the battlefield.

Ukrainian defences, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, are buckling under the strain of Russia’s costly but relentless months-long onslaught.

Russian advances have recently accelerated, with battlefield gains of up to 9km (more than five miles) in some parts of Donetsk, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday on the social platform X.

It said Russia has superior troop numbers, and despite heavy casualties the Kremlin’s recruitment drive is providing enough new troops to keep up the pressure.

Russia has held the battlefield initiative in Ukraine for the past year.

Ukrainian officials have long complained that Western military support takes too long to arrive in the country.

In early October, Russian forces drove Ukrainian troops out of Vuhledar, a town perched atop a tactically significant hill in eastern Ukraine.

It was part of a key belt of Ukrainian defences in the east.

Russia’s next targets are likely to be the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk and the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar.

In the meantime, Russia has kept up its long-range aerial attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine, authorities say.

A Tuesday morning attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed six people and injured 23 others, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the Russian attacks “must be stopped with strong action”.

“A stronger position by (Ukraine’s Western) allies is needed,” he wrote on Telegram.