KYIV, Ukraine –
Ukrainian troops have for the first time engaged with North Korean units that were recently deployed to help Russia in the war with its neighbour, Ukraine’s defence minister said Tuesday.
Another Kyiv official said Ukraine’s army fired artillery at North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk border region.
The comments were the first official reports that Ukrainian and North Korean forces have engaged in combat, following a deployment that has given the war a new complexion as it approaches its 1,000-day milestone.
Neither claim could be independently confirmed.
The Ukrainian and North Korean troops engaged in “small-scale” fighting that amounted to the start of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS in an interview.
North Korean soldiers are mixed with Russian troops and are misidentified on their uniforms, Umerov was quoted as saying by KBS. That makes it hard to say whether …