War in Ukraine: growing concern in kyiv after Trump's election, 717 Russian soldiers captured… update on the situation

In the streets of kyiv, pessimism is the key word on Wednesday. Because Donald Trump's victory in the American presidential election risks reducing aid to Ukraine, whose army is already retreating, day after day, in the face of the Russians.

In recent months, the billionaire has insisted that he can impose peace in Ukraine by “24 hours”without ever explaining how, but decrying the extent of the aid paid to kyiv.

“Something will change, there will be no more support” American, explains Natalia in reference to the tens of billions of dollars in military and financial aid that Washington and NATO members have provided since the start of the war in 2022, allowing kyiv to continue fighting against a well-established invader. more powerful.

In Ukraine, there are fears that the new president of the United States could impose a peace plan largely favorable to Russia. According to Western media, Mr. Trump would like to demilitarize but leave the area currently occupied by Moscow, or 20% of Ukrainian territory, under de facto Russian control. He would also be in favor of kyiv renouncing joining NATO, as demanded by the Kremlin.

However, this goes against the “victory plan” wanted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the most important points of which are, however, an official invitation to join NATO, as well as the strengthening of military aid to block the Ukrainian sky from attacks by Moscow and strike deep on the ground Russian.

And kyiv still demands respect for its territorial integrity, excluding any concession of its territory, which therefore seems to contradict some of the ideas of the American billionaire.

By congratulating Donald Trump on his “impressive victory”President Zelensky nevertheless said he hoped that this result would help Ukraine obtain “a just peace”. “I appreciate President Trump's commitment to the 'peace through strength' approach to global affairs”he wrote on X. At the end of October, a senior official from the Ukrainian presidency wanted to be reassuring to AFP, judging “very good” the Zelensky-Trump meeting in September in New York. The Ukrainian president also described Wednesday as “formidable” their date then.

Involvement of North Korean soldiers in combat will create more “instability”, says Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that the first reported skirmishes between the Ukrainian army and North Korean soldiers risked worsening the“instability in the world”.

His Defense Minister, Roustem Oumerov, confirmed in an interview broadcast Tuesday by South Korean television that armed clashes had taken place against North Korean soldiers, the first since the start of the large-scale invasion of the Ukraine by Russia in February 2022.

South Korea and the United States, in particular, say that thousands of North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia to support the Russian war effort.

“The first battles with North Korean soldiers opened a new chapter of instability in the world”said Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily address broadcast by video.

“We must, with the world, do everything to ensure that this Russian initiative to widen the war with a real escalation fails. Let this initiative (by Russian President Vladimir Putin) be a loser, both for him and for North Korea “he added.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that more than 10,000 North Korean troops had arrived in Russia, including one “important name” near the front, notably in the Kursk region where the Ukrainian army broke through in August.

The Pentagon in the United States estimated that at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Kursk but it was not able to confirm their participation in the fighting.
Roustem Oumerov told South Korean television station KBS that there had been a “petit engagement” with North Korean troops.

“Yes, I think so. It’s a commitment”he responded in English to the question of whether a clash had taken place.

KBS said Roustem Oumerov told the journalist conducting the interview that verification procedures were likely to take time because the Russian army is trying to pass the North Koreans off as Buryats, a Mongolian ethnic group from Siberia.

Russia does not explicitly recognize the presence of North Korean soldiers on its soil, but Vladimir Putin did not deny their presence last week. The Russian president said it was up to Russia to decide how to implement its defense partnership treaty with North Korea.

717 Russian soldiers captured, says kyiv

Ukraine said on Wednesday it had captured a total of 717 Russian prisoners of war since the start of its offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk, launched in early August.

The number of Russian soldiers taken prisoner is one of the claimed successes of this Ukrainian operation, which, however, did not make it possible to relax Russian pressure on the eastern front, as the kyiv authorities hoped.

The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky, reported on Facebook that “717 Russian soldiers” have been taken prisoner since the launch of this offensive on August 6.

This operation, the largest offensive on Russian territory since the end of the Second World War, took Moscow's forces by surprise in a weakly defended region, and was a humiliating setback for the Kremlin.

The Ukrainian authorities had cited several reasons for this incursion: bringing hostilities to Russian territory, preventing a Russian offensive in the Ukrainian region of Sumy, forcing Moscow to strip the other fronts and taking prisoners with a view to exchanging them for captive Ukrainians. .

Several prisoner exchanges have taken place in recent months, involving several hundred people on each side.

If Ukraine had claimed to have rapidly advanced over more than 1,000 square kilometers in the Kursk region, Russian forces have since claimed to have recaptured almost half of this area.

According to Mr. Syrsky, Russia has massed around 45,000 troops to push back Ukrainian forces in this area.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 11,000 North Korean troops had been deployed to the region to support the Russian army.