Zelensky’s Army Chief Visits Ukrainian Troops Deployed in Russia’s Kursk

Amid the ongoing war, Ukraine’s army chief has visited Ukrainian troops fighting inside Russia as battles rage on in Kursk and along the hundreds of miles of frontlines snaking through eastern Ukraine ahead of the onset of winter.

“I worked with military units and subdivisions operating in the Sumy and Kursk regions,” General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a post to messaging app Telegram on Sunday. “I worked directly at the brigades’ command posts. I listened to the brigade commanders and their proposals for further actions, and assisted in resolving problematic issues.”

The northeastern Ukrainian Sumy region borders the southern Russian region of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces are months into a surprise incursion that Moscow’s troops have struggled to quickly peel back.

“Despite all the enemy’s attempts to seize the initiative, the situation remains under our control,” Syrskyi said.

Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian military via email for comment.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s push into Kursk marked the most significant advance into Russian territory since the start of full-scale war more than two-and-a-half years ago in February 2022.

Many attacks focused on the area around the town of Sudzha, which Ukraine claimed just over a week after the incursion got underway, and toward Korenevo, a town northwest of Sudzha. Russia has in recent weeks advanced and retaken territory previously held by Ukraine south of Korenevo.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank that tracks daily changes to the frontlines, said on Saturday that Moscow’s forces had made gains to the east of Sudzha.

Syrskyi said he had made “a number of decisions” aimed at stopping Russian operations and “inflicting maximum losses on them.”

In a later statement on Telegram, the commander said that by pushing the fighting into Russian territory, Ukraine had cut off a Russian offensive from the north and forced Moscow to redeploy its “strongest units to Kursk.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last month that the incursion was a “success” and had significantly pulled down the number of artillery rounds Russia was able to fire towards the key eastern city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been slowly but surely advancing towards the strategic hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk region for months.

The head of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, told online outlet The War Zone on Thursday that around 2,600 North Korean troops would be sent to Kursk out of around 11,000 fighters being trained in eastern Russia for deployment against Ukraine.

Pyongyang’s fighters “will be ready” to fight in Ukraine by the start of November, the spy chief said. Andriy Kovalenko, an official with Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said up to 3,000 North Korean soldiers would be sent to the Kursk region.

Moscow—now a pariah for many Western countries following its invasion of Ukraine—has increasingly turned to allies like Iran, China and North Korea for weapons.

Zelensky said this week that the ties between Moscow and Pyongyang were “getting stronger,” adding that he was no longer just referring to weapons deliveries to Russia, but “the transfer of people from North Korea” into Russia’s military.

“What we know is that North Korea is already preparing a contingent to fight against Ukraine,” he said on Thursday.

This would mark a significant escalation in North Korea’s involvement in the war on behalf of its key ally, Russia.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) new Secretary General, Mark Rutte, said on Friday that the alliance “cannot confirm reports that North Koreans are actively now as soldiers engaged in the war effort,” but said this “might change.”

“Even if North Korea is not physically there at the battlefield, then still they are helping to fuel Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in every way they can,” he said.

Update 10/20/24, 9:56 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.