Ukrainian officials said on Monday that their forces had fired at North Korean soldiers in combat for the first time since their deployment by Russia to its western Kursk region.
The clashes mark the first direct intervention by a foreign army since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, as well as an expansion of what was already the largest land war in Europe since the second world war.
“The first military units of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] have already come under fire in Kursk,” Andriy Kovalenko, Ukraine’s top counter-disinformation official within the national security council, said on Telegram.
A senior Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed the military engagement to the Financial Times but declined to provide further details.
In Kyiv, foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said he had discussed with his visiting German counterpart Annalena Baerbock the “need for decisive action” in response to North Korea’s deepening involvement in the war.
“We urge Europe to realise that the DPRK troops are now carrying [out] an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state,” Sybiha said in a news conference.
The US on Monday called out Russia and China at the UN Security Council for “shamelessly protecting” and emboldening North Korea. South Korea and the EU also condemned the deployment and expressed concern that Russia could reward North Korea with transfers of nuclear and ballistic technology.
Another senior Ukrainian offi…
Senior Ukrainian intelligence officials told the FT that the forces were in barracks about 50km from the Ukrainian border and preparing to enter the fight within “days”.
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Ukraine has been devastated already, and now it’s becoming a battleground for these authoritarian alliances. I don’t see any heroes in this fight—just a lot of innocent people caught between superpowers with zero accountability. We should be supporting diplomacy, not more escalation.
And while they play geopolitical games, we’re all paying for it. More funding for military contractors, more taxes, more propaganda. We’re told to stand behind “freedom,” but really, we’re standing behind corporate profits. Let’s be real—wars like these are orchestrated to enrich the elite. Nothing here is about the “people.”
I’ll tell you who this benefits: global elites who fund both sides. They keep their pockets lined while the rest of us watch our morals and resources bleed away. North Korean soldiers are just more pawns in a war that’s lost its purpose. We’ve strayed from any concept of justice and freedom here—this is just greed and power in disguise.
Look, no one wants war, but if Russia and North Korea are banding together to challenge the West, we can’t just sit back. This isn’t about profits; it’s about security. We need leaders with backbone to stand up to these bullies. If Biden can’t handle this, he should step aside for someone who will.
Oh, yeah, because “leaders with backbone” have done such a great job so far, right? Both sides are a mess. We’re throwing money into a war that’s dragging on and bringing in new players like it’s some kind of twisted world stage show. I’m just here watching my tax dollars vanish while elites on both sides play war games.
Diplomacy? With Russia and North Korea? They’re thugs, plain and simple. This isn’t about playing nice; it’s about survival. The West has been too soft for too long. North Korean troops in Europe should be a wake-up call, not just to Ukrainians but to everyone in the West who values freedom. This is why we need leaders who aren’t afraid to stand up to tyranny.
Russia, North Korea, and China. Great—an axis of totalitarian regimes emboldened by Western incompetence. All the while, we have these massive defense budgets in the U.S. that seem to be getting us nowhere. Military contractors are raking in the cash, but somehow the Pentagon never seems prepared for this kind of escalation. Classic!
This isn’t about democracy or freedom; it’s about control. Europe, the U.S., Russia—they all want to dominate the narrative. North Korea’s involvement is just the next pawn move in a game where regular people are collateral damage. The mainstream media will twist this to make it seem like the West is in the right, but in reality, all sides are guilty of keeping this conflict alive.
You know, it’s incredible that Biden and his European allies can lecture the world about democracy while ignoring the fact that they’ve pushed Russia into a corner. They failed to contain this conflict from the beginning. Russia’s bringing in reinforcements because it feels threatened by NATO expansion and Western meddling. Maybe if our “leaders” practiced some restraint, we wouldn’t be seeing North Korean troops in Europe.
This is terrifying. Where is the international outcry? Europe is sitting on its hands while authoritarian regimes team up to rewrite the rules of the game. This is a dangerous escalation, and if Europe doesn’t wake up soon, it may find North Korean troops closer than they ever imagined.
This whole situation smells of another setup. How convenient that North Korean troops show up just as Russia needs reinforcements. It’s almost as if the whole thing is designed to keep people distracted while governments on all sides tighten their grip on power and funnel more money into “defense” spending. Just follow the money—wars like these always benefit someone, and it’s not the ordinary folks in Ukraine, Russia, or even here in the U.S.
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