Kyiv’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrsky, added that Ukrainian troops are currently holding back one of Russia’s “most powerful” offensives since the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s all-out invasion nearly three years ago.
Meanwhile, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Sun Hui, was in Moscow to reaffirm Pyongyang’s commitment to the strategic partnership signed in June with Moscow.
“We will always stand firmly by our Russian comrades until victory day,” Choe declared on Friday, promising an “invincible military comradeship” and praising Putin’s “wise leadership” during the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
American officials continue to refuse Ukrainian requests to hit targets inside Russia, despite reporting on the North Koreans’ imminent deployment. “We would expect that to happen in the coming days,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington on Thursday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has confirmed that around 8,000 North Korean fighters have already moved into Russia’s western province of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold onto territory captured during their surprise incursion in August.
Western analysts, however, argue that North Korea’s soldiers — who represent barely one week’s worth of Russian casualties — are less important than its huge stockpile of munitions. Pyongyang has sent Moscow up to 9 million artillery shells, roughly half of all shots fired by Russia in 2024, according to South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence.