Once again Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has taken his requests and demands of Western backers a big step further while lambasting lack of action and adequate support.
In a weekend Telegram post he warned that North Korean troops are already mustering just inside Russia within striking distance from Ukraine, and that long-range missiles are needed from the West to directly attack their encampments.
"Now we see every site where Russia is accumulating these soldiers from North Korea on its territory – all their camps," The Ukrainian leader began. He urged that Ukraine needs the capability to attack "preemptively".
"We could strike preemptively if we had this opportunity – to strike at a sufficiently long range. And it depends on the partners," Zelensky continued.
That's when he lashed out against his own allies who have provided Ukraine's military billions up to this point. "But instead of such necessary long-range attacks, America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching," he stressed. "Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well."
The Russian and North Korean governments have still not overtly or definitively confirmed the deployment, but have have strongly hinted at it, pointing to the defense pact inked between Presidents Putin and Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang this past summer.
But things might not be going so well with attempts to integrate Russian and North Korean soldiers on the ground. While the story is unverified, Newsweek mentions the following:
A Russian soldier has spoken of how North Korean troops deployed to fight against Ukraine endangered their own unit by shooting in the wrong direction.
The claims in a clip posted on social media comes as Kyiv said that the first North Korean soldiers stationed in Russia's Kursk region had come under fire. Concern grows internationally at the addition of a third party into the conflict.
Some reports say that Russian commanders really don't known what to do with the North Korean units, and there will remain obvious problems of communication and differences of military culture as well.
As for what's in it for North Korea, the same report details the following based on regional reports:
Pyongyang will get money, food, and space technology from Russia in return for their contribution to Putin's war effort, The Korea Herald newspaper reported on Sunday. It cited Wi Sung-lac, a South Korean lawmaker it said had been briefed by the country's National Intelligence Service (NIS).
North Korean soldiers will also get $2,000 per month salary, making a price tag of around $240 million a year if 10,000 soldiers are deployed, he said.
As for this latest escalation of Zelensky's rhetoric complaining about the Western alliance, the West has indeed still been resisting Ukraine's demands to greenlight long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory. Putin has warned that this would cross all 'red lines' and unleash major war.
Any such escalation could also impact the Korean peninsula if North Korean troops are in the midst of direct conflict in Eastern Europe as well. All of this suggests the slow, increasing internationalization of the war.