(Kyiv) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that North Korea was supplying soldiers to the Russian army to carry out its invasion of Ukraine, in addition to delivering ammunition.
“We see a growing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea. It is no longer just about the transfer of weapons. This is about sending people from North Korea to the armed forces of the occupier,” Zelensky said in his daily address.
“Under these conditions, our relationships with our partners must be developed. The front needs more support,” he continued.
According to him, Kyiv needs long-range weapons to “increase pressure on the aggressor” and “prevent a larger war.”
For weeks, Ukraine has been asking its Western allies to provide it with long-range missiles to strike Russia in depth.
On Thursday, the Kremlin denied reports from Kyiv and Seoul indicating that North Korean soldiers are lending a hand in Ukraine to the Russian army, which is receiving ammunition and missiles from Pyongyang according to the West.
Nuclear-armed North Korea has strengthened its military ties with Moscow in recent months and Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare visit to Pyongyang in June to sign a mutual defense agreement with the North’s leader. Korean Kim Jong-un.
A Ukrainian media outlet claimed last weekend that six North Korean officers died in a Ukrainian missile attack days earlier near Donetsk, in Moscow-occupied eastern Ukraine.
Andriï Kovalenko, an official of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, clarified on Telegram that the North Korean soldiers engaged in Ukraine “are limited[aient] to a small number of engineering troops.
These forces “monitor the use of munitions [nord-coréennes] by the Russian army,” he added, asserting that “Russia is increasingly dependent on ammunition from North Korea for different types of weapons.”
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, for his part, declared on Tuesday that Seoul considered it “very likely that there were casualties among North Korean officers and soldiers in Ukraine”, even saying if expect other troops to be sent to reinforce the Russians.