Ukraine’s partners should permit Kyiv to strike North Korean troops inside Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, as more than 10,000 combatants prepare to enter frontline combat.

Zelenskyy called once again for Western countries to lift the ban on long-range missile strikes into Russian territory, in this case for preemptive attacks against camps housing the foreign soldiers.

“But instead of such necessary long-range [authorization], America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching,” complained the Ukrainian leader in a post on Telegram. “Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians.”

Kyiv’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrsky, added that Ukrainian troops are currently holding back one of Russia’s “most powerful” offensives since the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s all-out invasion nearly three years ago.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Sun Hui, was in Moscow to reaffirm Pyongyang's commitment to the strategic partnership signed in June with Moscow. 

“We will always stand firmly by our Russian comrades until victory day," Choe declared on Friday, promising an “invincible military comradeship” and praising Putin’s “wise leadership” during the Russian aggression against Ukraine. 

American officials continue to refuse Ukrainian requests to hit targets inside Russia, despite reporting on the North Koreans’ imminent deployment. “We would expect that to happen in the coming days,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington on Thursday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has confirmed that around 8,000 North Korean fighters have already moved into Russia’s western province of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold onto territory captured during their surprise incursion in August.

Western analysts, however, argue that North Korea’s soldiers — who represent barely one week’s worth of Russian casualties — are less important than its huge stockpile of munitions. Pyongyang has sent Moscow up to 9 million artillery shells, roughly half of all shots fired by Russia in 2024, according to South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence.

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