Ukraine war briefing: Up to 11,000 North Koreans in Kursk, say Pentagon and Zelenskyy | Ukraine

Ukraine believes 11,000 North Korean troops have reached the Kursk border region in Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. That was echoed by the US as Pentagon spokesman Maj Gen Pat Ryder said: “We think that the total number of DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] forces in Russia … could be closer to around 11 to 12,000,” with “at least 10,000 right now in the Kursk oblast”.

Zelenskyy criticised the west for its muted response about the North Koreans. “We see an increase in North Koreans and no increase in the reaction of our partners, unfortunately,” the Ukrainian president said in his evening address on Monday. Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said that like the Russian army, the North Koreans “pose a threat to Ukraine. They are present there and, of course, they will die.” Andriy Sybiga, Zelenskyy’s foreign minister, said: “We call on Europe to realise that North Korean troops are now waging an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state. This proves once again that while the west is afraid of and hesitates, Russia is acting and going for escalation.”

Kim Jong-un’s troops are either the boost that Russia needs or simple cannon fodder, depending on who you ask, writes Justin McCurry. However, none have ever seen real combat, they will be fighting on unfamiliar territory, and like their civilian compatriots, North Korean soldiers suffer from malnutrition and disease.

Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, visited Ukraine on Monday offering “rock-solid” support in what amounted to a symbolic display. Germany is Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the US but its chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is refusing to provide long-range Taurus missiles and has rejected Ukraine’s request to immediately be invited into Nato.

Baerbock’s arrival was announced a few hours after 13 people, including four police officers, were wounded in another night of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. Ukraine said it had downed 50 Iranian-designed Russian drones in nine regions, including over the capital, Kyiv, overnight into Monday. Zelensky later said Russia had been using around 10 times more drones compared with the same period last year.

A woman from the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk was given 15 years’ jail on high treason charges for aiding invading Russian forces, Ukrainian prosecutors said on Monday. Between March and April this year she passed information about Ukrainian troop deployments to the Russian army, including where Ukrainian forces were stationed and the placement of checkpoints. Ukraine has opened thousands of cases of potential aiding and abetting Russia since the February 2022 invasion.

An incendiary device hidden in a DHL package that caught fire in Germany in July was due to be sent by air to the UK as part of a suspected Russian sabotage plot that may also have been a dry run for a similar attack on the US and Canada. Dan Sabbagh writes that British police and officials, as well as their European counterparts in Germany, Poland and Lithuania, strongly suspect Russia was behind this an other attacks as part of an effort to cause “mayhem” in the west in retaliation for western military support to Ukraine.