Kyiv has blamed North Korea for contributing military staff in support of the Kremlin’s invasion, amid another lethal Russian missile strike in the Ukrainian southern port city of Odesa and a three years sentence imposed on a French researcher by a Moscow court. “It’s evident that the relationship between Russia and regimes like North Korea is deepening. It’s not just about weapon exchange anymore, it’s actually about dispatching individuals from North Korea to the occupation forces,” stated the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Urging allies to act promptly to thwart Russia and its accomplices from adapting to their strategy, he also stressed the necessity for further development in relations with partners under the current circumstances. Zelenskiy echoed his call for the need of more weapons, the authorisation to use western-delivered arms for deeper strikes within Russia, and, importantly, “an increase in pressure on the assailant…to prevent escalation into a more extensive war”.
Kim Yong-hyun, South Korea’s Defence Minister, declared last week that it was highly probable that six North Korean officers died in a recent missile attack on the occupied eastern Ukraine, as claimed by Kyiv media. He also pointed out that relations between Moscow and Pyongyang were developing into something akin to a military alliance. Both Ukraine and the US have accused Russia of increasingly utilising North Korean shells and missiles in their attacks on Ukraine, a claim denied by Pyongyang. Reports of North Koreans serving with Russians in Ukraine were dismissed by the Kremlin as fake news.
Another Russian missile attack on the Odesa port resulted in one death and eight injuries amongst port workers. Damage was caused to two cargo ships in this attack. Odesa is the main port for exporting grain and other foods from Ukraine to the rest of the world.
There continues to be intense warfare in and around the key city of Toretsk located in the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine. Russia claims to have captured the village of Levadne in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia. Meanwhile, Ukraine insisted that it is maintaining its stance in the Russian border region of Kursk, having previously seized an area of around 1,000 square kilometres in August.
Tatyana Moskalkova, the ombudsman for human rights in Russia, has revealed that over 30,000 individuals, comprising close to 8,000 children, have been removed from the border region. She also claimed that Ukranian forces are believed to have unjustly relocated more than 1,000 inhabitants to Ukraine, a move she categorised as a serious infringement of their rights.
Although Kyiv denied allegations of ill-treatment of Russian civilians by its soldiers and extended an invitation to personnel from the United Nations and Red Cross to oversee the situation in Kursk, this offer was rejected by Russia.
In a separate event, a Moscow court handed down a three-year imprisonment sentence to Laurent Vinatier, a French individual employed by a Swiss organisation dedicated to conflict resolution. He was punished for amassing details regarding Russia’s armed forces without being officially classified as a “foreign agent”.