Russia and North Korean troops mass for 50,000-strong fighting force set for Kursk ground assault

North Korean troops are among a 50,000-strong Russian contingent of troops being mobilised for an attack to take back areas in the country’s Kursk region previously seized by Kyiv’s forces, The New York Times reports.

The report cites Ukrainian officials and a US military assessment which claims the Kremlin’s fighting force, boosted by troops from Kim Jong-un’s hermit regime, is large enough to launch the offensive without having to redeploy Russian soldiers in the east of Ukraine, which remains a priority for Moscow.

While Russian soldiers have made inroads with missile strikes and artillery fire in Kursk, which Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise offensive in August, until now Moscow has held off from a major assault on the region.

Kyiv’s powerbrokers now expect that siege, involving some of the 10,000 troops sent to the front from North Korea, to begin this week in what’s being viewed as a massive escalation in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces claimed to have shelled North Korean troops massing in the Kursk region as early as last week.

“We fully expect that D.P.R.K. soldiers could be engaged in combat,” Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Thursday, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, according to The New York Times.

The Times reports that the Pentagon remains unsure what constraints the government of President Kim Jong-un has put on the use of its forces. However, American officials expect them to be directly involved in the fighting.

However, US officials believe it will be a tough task for Putin’s forces to push Kyiv’s troops out of Kursk and that the combined troop contingent will take losses on a similar scale to that suffered by Russian troops in Ukraine’s bitterly fought eastern region. The Times reports that US and UK military analysts estimate Moscow is losing an average of 1200 troops a day to death and injuries.

News of the Kursk siege comes as Kyiv launched its biggest drone strike on Moscow since the start of the war in 2022.

At least 34 drones were launched by Ukraine on the Russian capital on Sunday, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city’s major airports and injuring at least five people.

Russian air defences destroyed another 50 drones over other regions of western Russia on Sunday, the defence ministry said.

“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack using airplane-type drones on the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said.

Russia’s federal air transport agency said the airports of Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky diverted at least 36 flights but then resumed operations.

Five people were injured in the Moscow region, the defence ministry said.

Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe alongside Istanbul.

For its part, Russia launched a record 145 drones overnight, Ukraine said.

Ukrainian officials said the country’s air defences downed 62 of those.

Ukraine also said it attacked an arsenal in the Bryansk region of Russia, which reported 14 drones had been downed in the region.

Unverified video posted on Russian Telegram channels showed drones buzzing across the skyline.

Ukraine, itself the target of repeated mass drone strikes from Russian forces, has tried to strike back against its vastly larger eastern neighbour with repeated drone strikes against oil refineries, airfields and even Russian strategic early-warning radar stations.

While the 1000km front has largely resembled grinding World War I trench and artillery warfare for much of the war, one of the biggest innovations of the conflict has been drone warfare.

Russia and Ukraine have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways and seek new ways to destroy them - from using farmers’ shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.

Russia has developed a series of electronic “umbrellas” over Moscow, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings, and a complex web of air defences to shoot down the drones before they reach the Kremlin in the heart of the capital.

Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production.

Soldiers on both sides have reported a visceral fear of drones - and both sides have used macabre video footage of fatal drone strikes in their propaganda.