Ukraine mobilizes against Russian advances and North Korean reinforcements

Ukraine announced on Tuesday a new mobilization of 160,000 men, faced with accelerating Russian advances, while the United States confirmed on Tuesday for the first time the presence of a “small number” of North Korean soldiers in the Russian region of Kursk, bordering Ukraine.

Russia's capture of the eastern city of Selydove comes on top of Washington's confirmation of a deployment of North Korean troops to the Ukrainian border.

There are “indications that a small number are already in the Kursk region, with another two thousand or so” about to arrive, Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder told a news briefing.

“We are concerned that they intend to use these forces in combat against the Ukrainians, or at least support combat operations against the Ukrainians in the Kursk region,” the spokesman added.

– 10,000 North Korean soldiers already in Russia –

According to the Pentagon, a total of 10,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had already declared on Monday that he “confirmed that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and that North Korean military units have been deployed in the Kursk region”, denouncing a “significant escalation” and a “dangerous expansion” of the war.

But this deployment also proves the “growing disarray” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, added the head of the Atlantic Alliance.

Russia conducted new nuclear military exercises on Tuesday under the supervision of Vladimir Putin, who had recently raised the possibility of using these weapons in the context of the conflict in Ukraine and with the Westerners.

Faced with a less well-equipped and under-manned Ukrainian army, Russian forces, despite significant losses, have been racking up successes in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, they claimed the conquest of Selydove, which had some 20,000 inhabitants before the war, a significant advance near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, in the east of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on October 29, 2024 at a Nordic summit in Reykjavik, Iceland © AFP – Halldor KOLBEINS

The conquest of Ukraine's eastern regions was defined as the “priority” by Vladimir Putin in this invasion launched in February 2022 by the Russian army which had then failed to take kyiv, the capital, and had then been pushed back to the east.

The Russian Defense Ministry also announced the capture of three localities in the area: Guirnyk, Katerynivka and Bogoyavlenka.

Russia has regained the initiative for about a year now in the face of Ukrainian troops handicapped by a lack of men, equipment and Western procrastination over the use and scale of military aid provided.

To counter it, kyiv will mobilize at least 160,000 additional soldiers, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, told MPs.

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According to him, this will allow the army's ranks to be replenished by 85%, while since the beginning of the invasion, “a total of 1.050 million citizens have been enlisted.”

This mobilization should be spread over the next three months, a source within the security sector told AFP.

The Russian army has advanced 478 km2 in Ukraine since the beginning of October, its largest territorial gain in a month since March 2022 and the first weeks of the conflict, according to an AFP analysis on Monday based on data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

– The war “is becoming international” –

In August, Ukraine tried to force Russia to divert part of its forces from the Donetsk region, by attacking and occupying part of the Russian border region of Kursk, further north.

But this gamble seems to have failed and, according to the West, kyiv and Seoul, Russia has now been reinforced by thousands of North Korean soldiers, Moscow having concluded an increasingly close alliance with Pyongyang.

North Korea has long been accused of massively supplying arms to Russia, but the involvement of its troops in the fighting would constitute yet another escalation in the worst conflict in Europe since World War II.

This topic was at the heart of the telephone conversation Tuesday between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol. “We came to the same conclusion: this war is becoming international,” Zelensky, who is traveling to Iceland, said on Telegram.

Ukraine: Positions of military forces © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sophie RAMIS, Cléa PECULIER

The Pentagon said Monday that North Korea had sent about 10,000 soldiers to train in eastern Russia, which will “probably” result in “a reinforcement of Russian troops near Ukraine in the coming weeks.”

A delegation from South Korea – a major arms producer – is due to visit Ukraine this week, according to media reports, with the aim of “intensifying the exchange” between kyiv and Seoul, according to Mr Zelensky.

– Strikes on Ukrainian cities –

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui was in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East on Tuesday and is expected in Moscow on Wednesday, according to Russian news agencies.

And Russia sent yet another message to its adversaries by announcing Tuesday evening that it had conducted new nuclear military exercises.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have “fully achieved” its objectives, notably with “ballistic and cruise missile launches.”

After a Russian drone attack on kyiv, October 29, 2024 © AFP – Anatolii STEPANOV

The Russian military continues to bombard civilian areas in Ukraine.

A Russian airstrike in Kharkiv, the country's second city in the northeast, killed at least four people Tuesday morning, its mayor said.

In the southern city of Kherson, two people were killed, the city said, and another person was killed in the neighboring Odessa region.

kyiv, the capital, was also targeted by an explosive drone attack overnight, but all were shot down, authorities said.

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