Zelensky confirms deadly clashes with North Korean troops as Putin says he is ready to talk to Trump

CNN
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North Korean troops stationed in Russia’s Kursk region have been battling Kiev’s forces on the battlefield, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday, adding that there had been fatalities in the clashes.

Zelensky said 11,000 North Korean soldiers were in the region, where Ukraine’s three-month military invasion of Russian territory has stalled.

“Eleven thousand North Korean soldiers or soldiers of the North Korean army are currently stationed on the territory of the Russian Federation on the border with Ukraine in the north of our country in the Kursk region,” Zelenskyy told reporters at the European Political Community summit in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday .

“Some of these troops have already taken part in hostilities against the Ukrainian military. Yes, there are already losses, that’s a fact.”

He did not say which side suffered the losses.

The New York Times reported earlier this week, citing senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials, that several North Korean troops had been killed in a limited battle with Russian and Ukrainian forces.

The announcement of their combat deployment comes as the United States and its allies consider how to respond to the escalating military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Ukraine and its NATO allies are also weighing how the re-election of US President-elect Donald Trump will affect the balance of the war and bracing for the possibility of a dramatic decline in US support two and a half years after Moscow’s invasion .

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke publicly for the first time about the US elections. He said he was ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect and noted that Trump’s comments on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine “at least deserve attention.”

“We are ready,” the Russian leader said when asked whether he would hold talks with Trump while speaking at a panel in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and praised his “courageous” behavior after an assassination attempt in July.

Putin congratulates Trump on his victory as president

Trump said he would end the war “in 24 hours” and suggested Ukraine had “given in a little bit” to Moscow.

Throughout his campaign, Trump and his running mate JD Vance expressed strong doubts about the continued US commitment to Kiev and made comments suggesting the US could push Ukraine into an uneasy ceasefire with Russia.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected suggestions that Russia should make concessions.

Trump didn’t elaborate on how he would quickly end the war, but Jill Dougherty, former CNN Moscow bureau chief, said it would “essentially bring everything to a halt.”

“That means the Russians would keep the Ukrainian territory that they have, that they won, and then somehow come to territorial concessions,” including Ukraine’s likely abandonment of Donbas and Crimea, said Dougherty, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies.

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Trump’s election to a second term comes at a precarious moment in the war. Ukraine is under intense pressure on the front lines, where its army chief has warned that its forces are facing “one of the strongest Russian offensives” since the start of the war.

According to a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman, Moscow is also firing near-constant waves of long-range drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and firing decoy drones without warheads to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses.

Zelensky warned on Monday that Moscow had increased its attacks with Iranian-made Shahed drones tenfold since last fall and that there had been only one night without a drone strike in the capital since September 1.

Ukraine’s president said from Budapest on Thursday that world leaders were not listening carefully enough to his pleas to allow Kiev to use long-range weapons as the country faces a “new wave of escalation” in which ” “The army of another state is involved in the war against Ukraine”. ”

Russian soldiers heard complaints about North Korean soldiers in intercepted audio recordings

To counter Ukraine’s surprise Kursk Offensive – the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II – Putin has bolstered his military’s strength with North Korean forces, according to the United States, South Korea and Ukraine.

US officials had warned that around 10,000 North Korean troops were in the Kursk region and were expected to go into battle against Ukraine. But Zelensky fears a greater role for North Korean troops if their allies fail to put more pressure on Putin.

“We believe that if we do not use appropriate weapons and do not exert political pressure on the Russian Federation, the next step may be a much greater deployment of the North Korean contingent,” he said.