There are risks of North Korea sending additional troops and military equipment to the Russian army,” Zelensky said. “We will have tangible responses to this.”

Secretive North Korea has one of the world’s largest militaries, with 1.28 million active soldiers, but unlike in Russia, the Korean People's Army (KPA) has no recent experience of combat. Pyongyang’s army is “thoroughly indoctrinated but with low readiness,” says Mark Cancian, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

While some Western officials initially viewed the arrival of North Korean soldiers in Russia as evidence of the Kremlin’s desperation, U.S. agencies now reportedly believe the idea was North Korea’s initiative,

After two years of intense courtship, progressing from warm words to vital weapons, summits in Pyongyang to 11,000 soldiers on the ground in Russia, the burgeoning relationship between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un was signed in blood this week when the first stories emerged of North Korean casualties on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Ukrainian special forces have released several excerpts from a purported diary it said was found on a North Korean soldier killed in front-line fighting in Russia.

John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, revealed that North Korean soldiers in Ukraine face harsh conditions, with some taking their lives out of fear for their families.

North Korean soldiers sent to aid Russia in its fight against Ukraine are dying in droves and some of them have even chosen suicide over surrender, according to officials. More than 1,000 North Korean soldiers were killed fighting in the Kursk region this past week — almost 10% of its deployment to Russia — after generals ordered a “human wave” attack,