Ukraine-Russia war live: Some North Koreans ‘already in Ukraine’ as Kyiv drafts 160,000 troops

Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Kruhliakivka in eastern Ukraine's Kharkiv region, the RIA news agency cited Russia's Defence Ministry as saying on Wednesday.

The battlefield report from the Russian state-owned news agency could not be independently verified.

The thousands of young soldiers North Korea has sent to Russia, reportedly to help fight against Ukraine, are mostly elite special forces, but that hasn’t stopped speculation they’ll be slaughtered because they have no combat experience, no familiarity with the terrain and will likely be dropped onto the most ferocious battlefields.

That may be true, and soon. Observers say the troops are already arriving at the front. From the North Korean perspective, however, these soldiers might not be as miserable as outsiders think. They may, in fact, view their Russian tour with pride and as a rare chance to make good money, see a foreign country for the first time, and win preferred treatment for their families back home, according to former North Korean soldiers.

“They are too young and won’t understand exactly what it means. They’ll just consider it an honor to be selected as the ones to go to Russia among the many North Korean soldiers,” said Lee Woong-gil, a former member of the same special forces unit, the Storm Corps. He came to South Korea in 2007. “But I think most of them won’t likely come back home alive.”

Hyung-Jin Kim reports:

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia who could join Moscow‘s fight in Ukraine in the “next several weeks”, the Pentagon said amid rising concerns over Pyongyong’s involvement in Vladimir Putin’s war.

The soldiers were believed to be heading for the border region of Kursk, where Moscow recently suffered defeats and has been struggling to push back Ukrainian troops, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Sigh said on Monday.

On Tuesday, South Korean lawmakers, briefed by the country’s spy agency, said some high-ranking North Korean military officials and troops deployed to Russia might move to the frontline.

North Korea might proceed with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch as early as November following the deployment of a mobile launcher, South Korean officials warned on Wednesday.

Citing information from military intelligence, South Korean parliamentarians revealed that North Korea appears prepared to test the ballistic missiles, also known as ICBM, and its atmospheric re-entry capabilities.

South Korea aims to send a team to Ukraine to monitor and analyse the deployment of North Korean troops by Russia, a presidential official said today.

The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said Seoul and its allies estimated at least 11,000 North Korean soldiers had been moved to Russia with more than 3,000 of them now deployed close to the front lines in Ukraine.

Russia struck Ukraine’s capital for the 19th time this morning, leaving nine people injured. Several apartments set ablaze and a kindergarten was damaged, officials in Kyiv said today.

“Nineteen air attacks on Kyiv in October!” Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said. “Overnight, Russian drones again flew over the capital.”

Falling debris from a destroyed drone sparked a fire in a multi-storey apartment building in Kyiv’s western district of Solomianskyi and injured at least nine people, including an 11-year-old girl, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

“All of them were treated by medics on the spot,” Mr Klitschko said.

Around 19 people were evacuated from the building, said the city’s military administration, which also posted photographs of a building with blown-out windows and damaged facade that it described as a kindergarten in Solomianskyi.

Russian drones, missiles and bombs smashed into Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s biggest cities, in nighttime attacks, killing four people and wounding 15 in a continuing aerial onslaught, authorities said Tuesday.

Russia has bombarded civilian areas of Ukraine almost daily since its full-scale invasion of its neighbor almost three years ago, causing thousands of casualties. The Russian army is also pushing hard against front-line defenses in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was expected to speak about that new threat at a meeting Tuesday in Reykjavik with the leaders of Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

A Russian aerial attack struck Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, at around 3 a.m., hitting a house and killing four people, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Nearly 20 houses were damaged in the attack, he said.

Several hours earlier, Russia dropped a glide bomb on the landmark Derzhprom building in Kharkiv city center, injuring seven people, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Derzhprom, also known as the Palace of Industry, is included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List as an example of modernist architecture.

Terekhov said that Russia has concentrated attacks on Kharkiv in recent days. He urged people not to ignore air raid warnings.

Authorities in Kyiv said debris from intercepted Russian drones fell on two city districts, injuring six people.