Moscow announced on Tuesday it had seized control of the mining hub of Selydove in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv initiated a fresh mobilisation drive and raised concerns over North Korea’s expanding military cooperation with Russia.
The Kremlin’s forces have been advancing rapidly across the sprawling eastern front, where exhausted and outgunned Ukrainian troops are being forced to cede ground, appealing for more Western support.
Russia’s claims of capturing four new settlements in the industrial Donetsk region came as Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and South Korea’s president agreed on deeper security cooperation after allies reported that thousands of North Korean troops had been transferred to Russia to aid its offensive.
The Russian defence ministry announced its forces had “fully liberated” Selydove, a town with Soviet-era buildings, whose estimated population of around 21,000 has fled from Moscow’s drone and rocket attacks.
Moscow also claimed control over the nearby villages of Bogoyavlenka, Girnyk, and Katerynivka, also in the Donetsk region, which President Vladimir Putin declared part of Russia in late 2022, the year Moscow invaded.
The gains announced by Moscow on Tuesday are the latest in a string of Russian advances that have gained momentum since February, with the collapse of Ukraine’s defences in the stronghold town of Avdiivka.
Russia has reportedly advanced 478 square kilometres (185 square miles) in October alone — a record since March 2022 — according to an AFP analysis of data from the American Institute for the Study of War.
Two-thirds of the Russian gains — or 324 square kilometres — were in the Donetsk region.
A Widening Conflict –
Ukraine has been grappling with worsening manpower shortages in recent months and is engaged in an unpopular debate about how to strengthen the military’s ranks.
On Tuesday, the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security Council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, told Parliament that the army planned to recruit an additional 160,000 people. An AFP source stated that recruitment would take place over three months.
The Russian advances occurred as Zelensky said he had discussed the deployment of North Korean troops to aid Russia with South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol.
Both nations, along with NATO and US leaders, are alarmed over reports of approximately 10,000 North Korean troops being sent to Russia.
“The conclusion is clear: this war is becoming internationalised, extending beyond two countries,” Zelensky told the South Korean leader, according to a call summary released by Kyiv.
Yoon, meanwhile, described North Korean involvement in the Ukraine conflict as “unprecedented and dangerous” and warned of the potential transfer of sensitive military technology and combat experience from Moscow to Pyongyang.
Ukraine will host a delegation from South Korea to discuss the escalation in the near future, a high-ranking official from the Ukrainian presidency stated.
“We expect to hear some sensitive details that cannot be conveyed over the phone. It’s clear that we must collaborate more closely in light of Pyongyang’s actions,” the official told AFP.
Simultaneously, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in the Russian far-eastern city of Vladivostok, TASS state news agency reported, citing a diplomatic source who noted, “tomorrow she will be in Moscow”.
Neither Russia nor North Korea — both nuclear-capable states — has denied that North Korean troops are in Russia, and on Tuesday, Russia escalated its long-standing nuclear posturing by announcing new nuclear drills overseen by Putin.
Deadly Strikes –
Meanwhile, Zelensky was visiting Iceland to rally allies around his “victory plan,” which calls for an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO.
Zelensky was also expected to request additional military aid and air defence systems from Nordic leaders.
Hours before Moscow announced its alleged advances in eastern Ukraine,
its aerial bombardments killed four people in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv — around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Russian border — according to the city’s mayor.
Mayor Igor Terekhov reported that nearly two dozen buildings were destroyed or damaged in the attack around 0000 GMT.
This strike followed a separate attack that damaged the Derzhprom, a modernist building considered one of the first Soviet skyscrapers.
AFP journalists at the later strike’s scene observed emergency service workers removing the remains of those killed in black body bags under lamplight.
Russian attacks also claimed two lives in Kherson and another in Odesa, both in southern Ukraine.
AFP.