War in Ukraine | North Korean soldiers already at the front, according to Washington

(Kyiv) The United States confirmed Tuesday that North Korean troops were “engaged in combat operations” alongside Russian soldiers in Russia's Kursk region, a small part of which is occupied by Ukrainian forces, corroborating reports. accusations from Kyiv.

“I can confirm that more than 10,000 North Korean troops were sent to Russia, most of them arriving in the Kursk region, where they began engaging in combat operations with Russian forces,” said Tuesday the spokesperson for the American Department of State, Vedant Patel, emphasizing the “concern” of the United States about this alliance.

According to Kyiv, some 11,000 North Korean soldiers are already deployed in Russia and have started fighting against Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region where the latter have been on the offensive since August.

This deployment greatly worries Western countries which support Ukraine.

Four people killed by Russian strike on residential building

A woman and her three children were killed in their apartment by a Russian missile in Kryvyï Rig, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine, according to the toll announced Tuesday by the authorities, a tragedy which caused turmoil in the country.

The missile destroyed a section of a residential building on Monday morning, and in the evening the woman's body was discovered under the rubble.

Emergency services released a photo of rescuers carrying the woman's body in a white bag. She was 32 years old, according to the public prosecutor's office.

Then, rescuers found the bodies of his three children, the public prosecutor's office said Tuesday morning.

They are two boys aged two and ten and a two-month-old girl, according to their grandmother, quoted by local media.

According to her, only the father survived, because he was in another room at the time of the explosion.

UNICEF said in a statement that it was “devastated” by this new tragedy, expressing alarm at the increase in recent weeks in the number of children killed in Russian attacks in Ukraine.

“During the first 12 days of November, intense and sustained attacks killed at least four children and injured more than twenty,” he lamented.

At least 589 children have died and 1,681 have been injured in Ukraine since the start of the invasion, according to the Ukrainian General Prosecutor's Office. A figure that is largely underestimated due to lack of access to areas occupied by the Russian army, i.e. almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

“Every night, children in Ukraine go to sleep in fear and uncertainty” fearing new strikes, continued UNICEF. “When not in their beds, children hide in hallways and bomb shelters amid alarms and explosions.”

The attack on Kryvyï Rig caused a wave of emotion in Ukraine. On social networks, Internet users relayed a photo of the father, Maksym Koulyk, looking dark at the scene of the tragedy, and those of his wife Olena with their eldest son, Kyrylo.

“It is an indescribable sorrow! Condolences to loved ones,” Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Loubinets said on Telegram on Tuesday.

The municipality declared Wednesday a day of mourning in the city.

This tragedy recalled the tragedies of other families decimated by Russian strikes. The last one dates back to early September when a mother and her three teenage daughters were killed by a Russian missile at their home in Lviv, a large western city. Only the father had survived.

In Odessa, in April 2022, a Russian missile strike on a residential building killed a three-month-old girl, her mother and her grandmother. The father, who was out shopping at the time of the attack, then joined the Ukrainian army and was killed in combat in 2023.

Authorities in Zaporizhzhia also said that two people had been injured by Russian strikes in this large southern city which has suffered increasingly deadly bombardments in recent weeks.

Moscow prepares assault on southern front, says Kyiv

Russia has reinforced its military contingent and intensified its bombings in anticipation of an assault on the southern front, where positions have remained largely unchanged in recent months, a Ukrainian military spokesperson assured Tuesday.

A Russian offensive in the southern region of Zaporizhia would pose a challenge for the Ukrainian army, already struggling on the eastern front and which is still engaged in an incursion into the Russian region of Kursk, on the northern border.

“The Russians have been preparing for some time, for several weeks, to carry out assault operations in several directions, in particular in the direction of Zaporizhia,” army spokesperson Vladyslav Volochyn told AFP. Ukrainian in the southern sector.

He specified that the Russian army was strengthening its troops, particularly in the sectors of Vremivka, Gulyaïpole and Robotyné.

“Every day, it carries out aerial and technical reconnaissance there, and restocks with ammunition. For several weeks, the enemy has been preparing to use armored vehicles,” he continued.

Mr Voloshyn refused to give the number of Russian soldiers gathered in this sector of the front, but he said small groups were already launching several attacks every day.

He assured that Ukrainian forces have strengthened their defense lines and are ready to repel a large-scale assault.

Last summer, Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale offensive to reconquer the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in the south of the country, but failed to make significant advances.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently warned that Russia has prepared a force of some 50,000 soldiers, which he said includes several thousand North Korean troops, in order to reconquer areas of the Russian Kursk region still occupied by the Ukraine.