North Korean foreign minister in Russia for talks

North Korea's Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has arrived in Russia for talks as the Russia-Ukraine war appeared to take a dangerous new turn.

NATO and South Korea expressed alarm that North Korean troops could soon be joining in on Moscow's side.

Ms Choe has already visited Russia in January and September this year.

NATO said yesterday that thousands of North Korean troops were moving toward the front line, a development which has prompted Ukraine to call for more weapons and an international plan to keep those troops at bay.

Two US officials confirmed that some North Korean soldiers are in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August and hold hundreds of square kilometres of territory.

The United States has said any North Korean troops fighting in the war would be "fair game" for Ukrainian attacks and that the US would not impose any fresh limits on Ukraine's use of US weapons if North Korea entered the fight.

South Korea, which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North decades after the 1950-1953 Korean War, also condemned the deployments.

South Korean officials are worried about what Russia may be providing to North Korea in return.

Ms Choe has arrived in Russia's far east on on her way to Moscow, according to Russian state media.

Russian state news agencies said it was not clear who Ms Choe, making her second visit in six weeks, would meet.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet her.

War is now 'extending beyond two countries', says Zelensky

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said after talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol that the North Korean moves were sending the war into a new phase.

"This war is becoming internationalised, extending beyond two countries," Mr Zelensky said on X.

I had a call with the @President_KR of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol. First and foremost, I thanked him for South Korea's consistent support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as for the financial and humanitarian assistance already provided and… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 29, 2024

"We agreed to strengthen intelligence and expertise exchange, intensify contacts at all levels, especially the highest, in order to develop an action strategy and counter measures to address this escalation."

Ms Yoon told Mr Zelensky that if North Korea receives aid from Russia and is able to glean military experience and knowledge from its involvement in the war it would pose a "great threat" to South Korea's security.

South Korea has said it may start supplying weapons to Ukraine if North Korean troops joined Russia's war.

Mr Putin has not denied the presence of North Korean troops in the country.

North Korean effort is more than ‘symbolic’

The role that North Korean troops may play in this war is still unclear.

"The numbers make this more than a symbolic effort, but the troops will likely be in support roles and constitute less than 1% of Russia's forces," said the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in a note.

"Russia is desperate for additional manpower, and this is one element of Russia's effort to fill the ranks without a second mobilisation," it added, noting the presence could grow.

Western diplomats and analysts said that the troops are also likely to play a political role for Russia and North Korea, strengthening their hands in relations with China, which has an uneasy partnership with both countries.

They would also send a message to the US and its allies.

"The closer Moscow's ties to Pyongyang, the more leverage it expects over US allies as well as China," Gilbert Rozman, of The Asan Forum, wrote for the US-based 38 North programme.

Russia needed a partner hostile to the status quo, wary of China but unwilling to antagonise it, and helpful in meeting arms or perhaps labour needs, he said.

A few thousand North Korean troops will not change the course of the war so it may be a Russian attempt to underscore to the United States just how disruptive Russia can be if it wants, said one diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Integrating North Korean troops into a very complex war machine is not easy," the diplomat said.

"But using their presence to scare the United States and its allies in Asia is quite simple."

Approximately 10,000 North Korean troops deployed to Russia for training

The Ukraine conflict broke out when Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022 and has since developed into a war of attrition largely fought along front lines in eastern Ukraine, with huge numbers of casualties on both sides.

The Pentagon estimated that 10,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to eastern Russia for training, up from an estimate of 3,000 troops last Wednesday.

The military in Russia was trying to teach military terminology to the North Korean soldiers, said South Korean politicians briefed by the country's spy agency.

Russia was also continuing to provide technical support for North Korea's attempts to field a fleet of spy satellites, the South Korean policiticans said.

For months, North Korea has been providing Russia with short-range ballistic missiles, artillery shells, and other weapons, according to intelligence officials in the United States, South Korea, and Ukraine.

Russian air strikes kill four in Ukraine's Kharkiv

At least four people were killed and another four were injured in a wave of overnight attacks on Ukraine's two largest cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

Four people were killed in Kharkiv in a Russian bombardment of the city's Osnovianskyi district, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on his Telegram messaging channel.

That attack followed a Russian guided bomb attack on Kharkiv late yesterday that shattered much of the Derzhprom building, one of the most celebrated landmarks in the city, dating from the 1920s.

In Kyiv, falling debris from a destroyed Russian drone injured four people and set a residential building on fire, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital said.

One of the people injured by debris in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district was taken to hospital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram channel. He said several cars were also on fire.

A Reuters' witness saw smoke rising over the district's residential area, which is located in Kyiv's west. Photos posted by Kyiv's military administration on its Telegram channel showed a residential building and nearby cars burning in the dark.

The administration said Ukraine's air defence units were trying to repel a Russian drone attack on the city and that drone debris fell also onto the Sviatoshynskyi district in Kyiv's west, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The size of the Russian overnight attack was not immediately clear. There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks.

Russia denies targeting civilians in the war sparked by its invasion of its neighbour Ukraine in February 2022.

The war has killed thousands of people, the vast majority of them Ukrainians and has turned cities and villages into piles of rubble.