Kim's troops head to Ukraine Will Russia-North Korea 'blood alliance' change war dynamics?

Depending on whom you ask, they are the boost that Russian forces need to make a significant breakthrough in Ukraine, or they are simple cannon fodder, destined for repatriation in body bags.

- Justin McCurry

After weeks of speculation, Nato and the Pentagon have confirmed that about 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, with most massing near Ukraine's border in Kursk, where the Kremlin's forces have struggled to repel a Ukrainian incursion.

US officials believe the North Koreans could enter the conflict within days, as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pleads with his country's allies to "stop watching" while his troops prepare to confront a new and untested enemy.

The North Koreans came under Ukrainian artillery fire during "small-scale" fighting yesterday, said Ukraine's defence minister, Rustem Umerov, in the first official confirmation of contact between the two forces.

It is too early to say how the Russian-North Korean "blood alliance" will change the dynamics of the conflict.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Russia had been training them to use artillery, drones and "basic infantry operations, including trench clearing, indicating that they fully intend to use these forces in frontline operations".

In his nightly television address yesterday, Zelenskyy said: "The first battles with North Korean soldiers have opened a new chapter of instability in the world."

But not one of the young men drafted from Kim Jong-un's regular army of about 1 million - the "strongest in the world", according to Kim - has seen combat.

And they will be fighting on unfamiliar territory, with new weapons and in uniforms bearing the flag of a country - Russia - they know little about.