Ukrainian Zelenskiy is urging his allies to take steps before North Korean troops reach the front

Kiev, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged his allies to stop “watching” and take action sooner North Korean troops deployed in Russia reach the battlefield.

Zelenskyy raised the prospect of a pre-emptive Ukrainian strike on camps where North Korean troops are trained, saying Kiev knows their location. But he said Ukraine cannot do this without permission from allies to use Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside Russia.

“But instead… America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean army to start attacking Ukrainians too,” Zelenskyy said in a message on the Telegram messaging app late Friday.

The Biden administration said this on Thursday About 8,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia’s Kursk region, near the Ukrainian border and prepare to help the Kremlin fight against Ukrainian forces in the coming days.

Western leaders have the North Korean troop deployment as significant escalation that could also shake up relations in the Indo-Pacific region and open the door to technology transfers from Moscow to Pyongyang that could increase the threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with her Russian counterpart in Moscow on Friday.

Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly said they need permission to use Western weapons to attack weapons depots, airfields and military bases far from the border to motivate Russia to seek peace. In response to this US defense officials have argued that the number of missiles is limited and that Ukraine is already using its own long-range drones to hit targets further into Russia.

Moscow has also consistently signaled that it would consider such strikes a major escalation. President Vladimir Putin warned on September 12 that Russia would be “at war” with the US and NATO states if they approved it.

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