Putin doesn’t deny North Korea boots in Ukraine war as Kyiv spots them in Kursk

Moscow was ready to consider any options to end conflict in Ukraine, but only proceeding from “reality on the ground”, Russian president Vladimir Putin said.

“We are prepared to consider any options for peace agreements based on the realities on the ground. And are not ready for anything else,” Mr Putin said.

Ukraine’s military intelligence service said the first North Korean units trained in Russia had been deployed in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August.

“The first units of the military from the DPRK, which were trained at the eastern Russian training grounds, have already arrived in the combat zone of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In particular, on 23 October, 2024, their presence was recorded in the Kursk region,” the Ukrainian intelligence agency said in a statement.

It said a total of around 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were already in Russia, and training was taking place on five military bases.

Russian deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was appointed responsible for overseeing the training of North Korean military, the agency said.

The Kremlin has previously dismissed reports about the North’s troop deployment as “fake news”. But Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that it was Moscow’s business how to implement a partnership treaty with Pyongyang.

Vladimir Putin was asked about whether any North Korean troops were in Russia, which he neither confirmed nor denied. The US on Wednesday said that 3,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia and are training at several locations.

“Images are a serious thing, if there are images, then they reflect something,” he said when asked about satellite photos of troops.

Mr Putin noted that lawmakers in Moscow earlier in the day ratified a pact with North Korea on mutual military assistance as part of a “strategic partnership” with Pyongyang.

“We have never doubted that the North Korean leadership takes our agreements seriously. What and how we will do within the framework of this article (of the agreement) is our business,” he said.

Vladimir Putin closed a summit of the Brics bloc of developing economies last night, praising its role as a counterbalance to what he called the West’s “perverse methods.”

The three-day summit in the city of Kazan was attended by leaders or representatives of 36 countries, highlighting the failure of US-led efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

The conflict came up repeatedly at the meeting, which saw the first visit to Russia from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in more than two years and drew an angry reaction from Kyiv.

Mr Guterres called for “a just peace” in Ukraine, in line with the UN Charter, international law and General Assembly resolutions. He also urged an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan.

At a news conference last night, Mr Putin was asked about former US president Donald Trump’s promise to end the fighting in Ukraine.

“What Mr Trump said recently, what I heard, (is) he spoke about the desire to do everything to end the conflict in Ukraine,” Mr Putin said. “It seems to me that he said it sincerely. We certainly welcome statements of this kind, no matter who makes them.”

Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine killed at least six people and wounded 10 yesterday, regional authorities said.

A thermobaric ammunition attack on the town of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region wounded 10 people, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. A woman who was admitted to hospital in a serious condition after the attack later died, he said.

“The enemy struck near a shop and the town market,” Mr Syniehubov said in an initial statement.

He later added that a two-storey retail building had been damaged, along with a dozen kiosks and windows of nearby homes. Russia occupied Kupiansk in the early days of its 2022 invasion but was pushed out by a lightning Ukrainian counter-offensive in September that year.

In recent months, Moscow’s forces have been advancing slowly back towards the town and are now less than 4km (2.5 miles) from its northern outskirts, according to open-source maps.

Russian shelling later in the day killed three people around the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.

Mr Filashkin said later on Facebook that a Russian strike on a branch of the Nova Poshta delivery service killed two people in Oleksiyevo-Druzhkiva, near the frontline towns of Chasiv Yar and Kostyantynivka.

Russian troops have been stepping up their advance towards Pokrovsk in recent months, moving as close as 8km from its outskirts.