Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged its allies to stop “watching” and take steps before North Korean troops deployed in Russia reach the battlefield, and the country’s army chief warned that his troops are facing “one of the most powerful offensives” by Moscow since the all-out war started more than two years ago.

Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a preemptive Ukrainian strike on camps where the North Korean troops are being trained and said Kyiv knows their location. But he said Ukraine cannot do it without permission from allies to use Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia.

“But instead … America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well,” Zelenskyy said in a post late Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

The Biden administration said on Thursday that some 8,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia’s Kursk region near Ukraine’s border and are preparing to help the Kremlin fight against Ukrainian troops in the coming days.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s military intelligence said that more than 7,000 North Koreans equipped with Russian gear and weapons had been transported to areas near Ukraine. The agency, known by its acronym GUR, said that North Korean troops were being trained at five locations in Russia’s Far East. It did not specify its source of information.

Western leaders have described the North Korean troop deployment as a significant escalation that could also jolt relations in the Asia Pacific region, and open the door to technology transfers from Moscow to Pyongyang that could advance the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with her Russian counterpart in Moscow on Friday.

Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly said they need permission to use Western weapons to strike arms depots, airfields and military bases far from the border to motivate Russia to seek peace. In response, US defence officials have argued that the missiles are limited in number, and that Ukraine is already using its own long-range drones to hit targets farther into Russia.

Moscow has also consistently signalled that it would view any such strikes as a major escalation. President Vladimir Putin warned on September 12 that Russia would be “at war” with the US and NATO states if they approve them.

Ukraine facing ‘powerful’ Russian offensive

Zelenskyy’s call came shortly before Ukraine’s top commander, General Oleksandr Syrskii, said on Saturday that his troops are struggling to stem “one of the most powerful offensives” by Russia since its all-out invasion of its southern neighbour in February 2022.

Writing on Telegram following a call with a top Czech military official, Syrskii hinted that Ukrainian units are taking heavy losses in the fighting, which he said “require constant renewal of resources.”

While Syrskii did not specify where the heavy fighting took place, Russia has for months been conducting a ferocious campaign along the eastern front in Ukraine, gradually compelling Kyiv to surrender ground. But Moscow has struggled to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk border region following an incursion almost three months ago.

Dozens injured in Russian strikes on Ukraine

Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv overnight into Saturday, killing a policeman and injuring dozens, local Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported. According to Syniehubov and Ukraine’s national police force, one missile slammed into a spot where a large group of police were gathered, killing a 40-year-old serviceman and injuring 36 more.

In Ukraine’s southern Kherson province, Russian shelling on Saturday killed a 40-year-old woman and wounded three others, including two children, local Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported. Another Kherson resident was wounded in a drone attack later that day, according to local Ukrainian authorities.

Five more civilians, including two children, were injured after Russia struck Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Serhiy Lysak said.

In Kyiv, air raid sirens wailed for more than five hours early Saturday morning as Russian drones rained on the capital, sparking a fire in an office block downtown and injuring two people, according to the city’s military administration.

Overall, Russian forces overnight attacked Ukraine with more than 70 Iranian-made Shahed drones, the Ukrainian air force reported Saturday. It said most were shot down or sent off-course using GPS jamming. Falling debris damaged power networks and residential buildings in multiple provinces and injured an elderly woman near Kyiv, officials said.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry hinted that Russia’s drone campaign was slowing down, saying Moscow launched just more than half as many in October as the month before.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry reported that its forces overnight shot down 24 Ukrainian drones over four Russian regions and occupied Crimea. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.