Germany's Foreign Minister visited Ukraine on Monday in a symbolic display of support but offered no concrete assurances as the war-battered country sounded the alarm over thousands of North Korean troops building up in Russia and diminishing foreign aid.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Kyiv believed 11,000 North Korean troops had reached the Kursk border region in Russia, with the West repeatedly warning they could be sent into combat within days.
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Kyiv is urging its allies to respond to Pyongyang's troop deployment and has appealed for permission to use long-range weapons deep inside Russian territory.
Zelensky has criticised the West for its muted response so far to reports of the deployment, a major escalation in the conflict.
"We see an increase in North Koreans and no increase in the reaction of our partners, unfortunately," he said in his evening address.
During her visit, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock voiced "rock-solid" support but gave no reassurances that Kyiv's allies would respond to Russia's rapid advances or Ukraine's requests for help.
"Right here, right now. We stand firmly by your side as long as you need us," she said during a press conference with her Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga on her eighth trip to Ukraine.
Baerbock's visit comes at a critical moment in the nearly three-year war as Ukrainian defences buckle under Russian pressure and ahead of US elections that could prove decisive for further military aid from Ukraine's most powerful ally.
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Zelensky has grown visibly frustrated by what he sees as a meagre Western reaction to Russia allegedly hosting North Korean troops.
Sybiga, his foreign minister, also urged the West to act.
"We call on Europe to realise that North Korean troops are now waging an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state. This proves once again that while the West is afraid of and hesitates, Russia is acting and going for escalation," Sybiga said.
A US Defense Department spokesman said Monday that the number of North Korean troops in Russia's Kursk region had risen by about 2,000.
"We think that the total number of DPRK forces in Russia... could be closer to around 11 to 12,000," with "at least 10,000 right now in the Kursk Oblast," Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said, using the abbreviation of North Korea's official name.
- N.Korea FM meets Putin -
Baerbock acknowledged that Moscow was "seeking military assistance" from Pyongyang and denounced Russia's "harsh" attacks in eastern Ukraine, and called on Ukraine's allies to provide more air defence systems.
Germany is Ukraine's second-largest backer after the United States and has pledged 170 million euros ($185 million) in emergency aid to help the country get through the winter.
Ukraine has long been asking Germany for long-range Taurus missiles but Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to provide them over fears of escalating and widening the conflict.
Scholz has also rejected Ukraine's request to immediately be invited into NATO, made by Zelensky when he recently presented his "Victory Plan" to Western allies.
Zelensky told journalists last month that Berlin was "afraid" to allow Ukraine to integrate with the US-led defence alliance more closely because it feared how Russia might respond.
Baerbock's visit coincided with a meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui. The Kremlin released images showing the two shaking hands ahead of talks.
- North Koreans 'will die' -
Ukrainian forces in August launched a surprise offensive into Russia's western Kursk region, and Kyiv said Monday that Pyongyang's forces were already under fire in the border territory.
"They, like the Russian army, pose a threat to Ukraine. They are present there and, of course, they will die," Andriy Yermak, Zelensky's chief of staff, wrote on social media.
But Ukrainian forces are reportedly losing ground in Kursk and Russian troops are rapidly advancing in the industrial Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claimed as part of Russia in late 2022.
Moscow advanced 610 square kilometres (230 square miles) in October alone, according to an AFP analysis of data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Baerbock's arrival was announced hours after 13 people, including four police officers, were wounded in another night of Russian attacks on Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv.
AFP journalists at the scene saw buildings gutted by a blast and first responders in helmets hauling wounded civilians to ambulances.
Kyiv said it had downed 50 Iranian-designed Russian drones in nine regions overnight, including over the capital Kyiv. Zelensky later said that Russia had been using around 10 times more drones compared to the same period last year.
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