Asked if the engagement meant North Korea had officially joined the war, Umerov replied: “Yes, I think so. It was a clash.”
“We expect more engagements in the coming weeks,” he added.
More than 10,000 North Korean soldiers are now in the Kursk region to assist Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon said Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Saturday for Kyiv’s allies to lift their ban on long-range missile strikes into Russian territory so that Ukraine can hit North Korea’s troops.
“Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram.