"Approximately 10,000 North Korean troops have been dispatched to Russia, and a considerable number of them have moved to frontlines including Kursk," said a ministry spokesperson during a press briefing.
The remarks came just several hours after a similar statement from the U.S. State Department, which confirmed that more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have moved to Kursk, a Russian territory occupied by Ukraine, and that they may engage in battles "in the coming days."
"Up from when we spoke [last] Thursday when we said as many as 8,000 were there. Now we can see – we assess that as many as 10,000 have made their way to Kursk," said spokesperson Matthew Miller the previous day.
Miller added that the North's troops were "likely that they would enter into combat against Ukrainian forces, and if they did, they would be legitimate military targets."
On the same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said during his evening speech that 11,000 North Korean soldiers are in Kursk now.
"There are already 11,000 of [North Korean troops] in the Kursk region. We are seeing an increase in North Koreans but, unfortunately, not an increase in our partners' response," Zelensky sighed.
Amid growing concerns over North Korea's impending involvement in the war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin had an unexpected meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, who is in Moscow for talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Putin met with Choe, "who is on a working visit to Russia," presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Russia's state-run news agency TASS, quoting him as saying, "Today is a holiday, and meeting with friends on a holiday is a very good tradition."
Details of their talks were not revealed, but pundits speculated that Putin would thank Choe for North Korea's troop deployment and that they also discussed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's reciprocal visit to Moscow.
Putin, who visited Pyongyang in June this year, asked Kim to visit the Russian capital.
