The Kremlin has amassed 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops ready to be deployed to the Kursk region to retake the territory seized by Ukraine in its surprise incursion earlier this year, officials said.
The full-force attack from Moscow and Pyongyang troops is expected in the coming days as US and Ukrainian officials confirm sightings of North Korean soldiers training and being deployed in Kursk, the New York Times reported.
Officials fear the attack would undo all the progress Kyiv has made in Russia, with the Kremlin’s forces already making slow but steady advances in Kursk and in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine shocked the world in August when it mounted a sudden counter-invasion against Russia, seizing dozens of cities and key transport routes in Kursk as Moscow failed to react quickly.
Kyiv, however, could not maintain the momentum, with Russia besieging the conquered cities and whittling away at the Ukrainian forces fighting in the territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed the fighting has cost Russia thousands of troops, but Moscow is replenishing its ranks in Kursk with about 11,000 North Korean soldiers ready to help their new military ally.
One Ukrainian commander told CNN that an influx of North Korean soldiers on the battlefield would allow the Kremlin to redistribute its own forces elsewhere along the eastern front where they’re most needed.
“In military terms, they amount to three full-blooded brigades,” the commander, speaking on the condition of anonymity, explained of the new Russian-North Korean forces.
“Imagine that now the enemy withdraws 10,000 soldiers from the second line of defense, puts soldiers from North Korea there, and sends these three brigades to one of the [places where] active hostilities are underway.”
While the Kursk incursion appeared aimed at forcing Russia to respond by deploying its troops away from the front lines, Moscow has continued its relentless attacks along the border in Kharkiv, Kherson and Donetsk.
Kharkiv continues to see some of the most intense bombardments of the war, with Moscow launching missiles and explosive drones that kill and injure dozens of civilians nearly every day, according to the Ukrainian military.
Kherson has seen similar results, with civilians warning that the city has transformed into a human hunting ground where Russian drones target residents, witnesses told the Washington Post.
The capture of Ukraine’s Donetsk region remains a high priority for Moscow, whose troops have besieged the territory for months as Russian forces close in on the city of Kurakhove, a key hub where hundreds of civilians remain trapped without any humanitarian volunteers able to reach them.
Kurakhove’s hospital, schools, water treatment plant, refugee center, post office and cultural center have all been destroyed by Russian shelling, local officials say.
Moscow holds a three-sided front on the city, with its forces battling less than 2 miles from the city center as of Sunday.
With Post wires
