KYIV, Ukraine, Oct 30, (AP): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that the thousands of North Korean soldiers expected to reinforce Russian troops on the front line in Ukraine are pushing the almost three-year war beyond the borders of the warring parties. Western leaders say North Korea has sent some 10,000 soldiers to help Russia’s military campaign and warn that its involvement in a European war could also unsettle relations in the Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia.

Zelenskyy said he spoke to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and told him that 3,000 North Korean soldiers are already at military bases close to the Ukrainian front line and that he expects that deployment to increase to 12,000. At the Pentagon on Tuesday, spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said a "relatively small number” of North Korean troops are now in Russia's Kursk region, where Russian troops have been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion, and a couple thousand more are heading in that direction.

South Korea, which has been in close contact with NATO, the US and the European Union about the latest developments, warned last week that it could send arms to Ukraine in retaliation for the North's involvement. "There is only one conclusion - this war is internationalized and goes beyond the borders" of Ukraine and Russia, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The Ukrainian president also said he and Yoon agreed to step up their countries' cooperation and exchange more intelligence, as well as develop concrete responses to Pyongyang's involvement.

In Washington, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Tuesday with Zelenskyy's top adviser to discuss the North Korean troops as well as a coming surge of weaponry that the U.S. is delivering to Kyiv to help the Ukrainians harden protection of their energy infrastructure, according to White House officials familiar with their private talks. Sullivan and Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, shared concerns that North Korean troops could be deployed to Russia's Kursk region and what such a development could mean for the conflict.

The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly, said during the two-hour meeting at the White House, Sullivan also briefed Yermak on President Joe Biden’s plans to push additional artillery systems, ammunition, hundreds of armored vehicles and more to Ukraine before he leaves office in January.