American agencies have assessed that China dislikes the growing partnership between Russia and North Korea. The State Department has raised the troop issue with Chinese diplomats.

The Group of Seven has branded Russia ’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops into its fight with Ukraine as a “desperate effort” to replenish Moscow’s own losses as Kyiv reports the first combat clashes with Pyongyang’s soldiers.

Ukrainian troops have for the first time engaged with North Korean units that were recently deployed to help Russia in the war with its neighbor, Ukraine's defense minister said Tuesday. Another Kyiv official said Ukraine's army fired artillery at North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk border region.