Zelensky confirms deadly clashes with North Korean troops as Putin says he’s willing to talk with Trump

By Helen Regan and Svitlana Vlasova, CNN

(CNN) — North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s Kursk region have fought Kyiv’s forces on the battlefield, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, adding that the clashes resulted in fatalities.

Zelensky said 11,000 North Korean soldiers are in the region, where Ukraine’s three-month military incursion into Russian territory has stalled.

“Eleven thousand North Korean soldiers or soldiers of the North Korean army are currently present on the territory of the Russian Federation in the border with Ukraine on the north of our country in the Kursk region,” Zelensky told reporters at the European Political Community summit in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday.

“Some of these troops have already taken part in hostilities against the Ukrainian military. Yes, there are already losses, this is a fact.”

He did not specify which side suffered the losses.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that a number of North Korean troops had been killed in a limited engagement with Russian and Ukrainian forces, citing senior US and Ukrainian officials.

The announcement of their use in combat comes as the United States and its allies weigh how to respond to the escalating military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Ukraine and its NATO allies are also gauging how the reelection of US President-elect Donald Trump will impact the balance of the war and are bracing for the possibility of a dramatic reduction in US support two-and-a-half years after Moscow invaded.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public comments on the US election, saying he is ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect and noted that Trump’s comments on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine “deserve attention at the very least.”

“We’re ready,” the Russian leader said when asked whether he would hold talks with Trump, while addressing a discussion forum in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and praised his “courageous” conduct following an assassination attempt in July.

Trump has said he would end the war “in 24 hours” and suggested that Ukraine should have “given up a little bit” to Moscow.

Throughout his election campaign, Trump and his running mate JD Vance cast strong doubts on continued US commitment to Kyiv and made comments that suggest the US could pressure Ukraine into an uneasy truce with Russia.

Zelensky has repeatedly pushed back at suggestions of making concessions to Russia.

Trump has not elaborated on how he would quickly end the war, but former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty said it “essentially would freeze everything in place.”

“Which means that the Russians would be holding the Ukrainian territory that they have, that they’ve won, and then they would somehow come to territorial concessions,” including Ukraine likely giving up Donbas and Crimea, according to Dougherty, adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies.

Russia escalates attacks in Ukraine

Trump’s election to a second term comes at a precarious moment in the war. Ukraine is under fierce pressure on the front lines, where its army chief has warned his forces are facing “one of the most powerful Russian offensives” since the start of the war.

Moscow is also unleashing near-constant waves of long-range drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and firing decoy drones without warheads to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, according to a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force.

Zelensky warned Monday that since last fall Moscow had increased tenfold its attacks using Iranian-made Shahed drones, and in the capital there has only been one night without a drone attack since September 1.

The Ukrainian president said from Budapest Thursday that world leaders are not listening hard enough to his pleas to allow Kyiv to use long-range weapons as it faces a “new wave of escalation” involving “the army of another state in the war against Ukraine.”

To counter Ukraine’s surprise Kursk offensive – the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II – Putin has bolstered his military’s manpower with North Korean forces, according to the US, South Korea and Ukraine.

US officials had warned that around 10,000 North Korean troops are in the Kursk region and would be expected to enter combat against Ukraine. But Zelensky fears a greater role for North Korean troops if its allies fail to exert more pressure on Putin.

“We believe that if we do not use appropriate weapons and political pressure on the Russian Federation, the next step may be much more use of the North Korean contingent,” he said.

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CNN’s Catherine Nicholls, Sebastian Shukla, Lauren Kent, Daria Tarasova-Markina and Christian Edwards, contributed reporting