German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has described reports of North Korean troops being sent to Russia as "very worrying." "This cannot be underestimated," he told journalists during his trip to India on Friday.

North Korean troops are poised to be deployed by Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine as early as this weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed Friday. Western officials have warned that such a development would stoke the almost three-year war and bring geopolitical consequences as far away as the Indo-Pacific region.

Putin doesn’t deny North Korean boots in war as ‘12,000 troops already seen in Kursk’ - 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers, already in Russia, Ukraine military intelligence says