Zelensky: North Korean forces are pushing the war with Russia “beyond the borders”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers in Russia is pushing the war beyond its borders.

“There is only one conclusion: this war has become international,” the Ukrainian leader said on Telegram on Tuesday.

Western leaders have also warned that North Korea’s involvement in a European war could increase tensions in the Indo-Pacific region.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Pyongyang’s sending of troops to Russia represented an escalation of Moscow’s war in Ukraine and went against China’s stated position on the conflict, following talks on Tuesday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“North Korean activity at the moment, both with regard to arms exports and especially with regard to sending troops to China, is unfortunate for Russia, and is an escalation, expansion and provocation,” Stapp told reporters in Beijing.

Zelensky said he spoke to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yul and told him that 3,000 North Korean soldiers are already at military bases close to the Ukrainian front line, and that he expects this deployment to increase to 12,000.

At the Pentagon on Tuesday, Defense Department spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said a “relatively small number” of North Korean forces were now in Russia’s Kursk region, where Russian forces are struggling to repel the Ukrainian incursion, and another 2,000 were headed there. This trend.

South Korea, which has been in close contact with NATO, the United States and the European Union over the latest developments, warned last week that it may send weapons to Ukraine in retaliation for North Korea’s involvement.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang said its top diplomat was visiting Moscow in another sign of deepening relations between them.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached their highest levels in years, with North Korea continuing to conduct provocative weapons tests and South Korea and the United States expanding their military exercises.

This comes as Russian drones, missiles and bombs bombed Kiev and Kharkiv overnight, killing four people and wounding 15 others, according to local authorities.

The Russian military is also pressing hard against front-line defenses in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday that Russian forces had captured the town of Hernik in Donetsk and the villages of Katrinivka and Buhoyavlenka. Euronews was unable to independently confirm these allegations.