North Korean forces deployed to Russia’s Kursk have not yet been involved in Moscow’s attempts to dislodge Ukrainian troops from the region, said a senior official at Ukraine’s national security agency, contradicting reports from the United States and South Korea. Both Washington and Seoul said early this week that North Korean troops had been fighting against Ukrainian forces in Kursk. The U.S. estimated more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers had been sent to the region, and they had begun engaging in combat operations alongside Russian forces. “The North Korean military has not yet been involved in assault operations, but they are positioned in place,” said Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council.The NSDC is a state agency tasked with developing and coordinating security policy on domestic and international matters and advising the president

A recent probe by Russian forces against Ukrainian positions in Kursk was unsuccessful and they had lost equipment and troops, said Kovalenko. He added, however, that the Russian army still had the capacity for further assaults in Kursk. The contradictory accounts have emerged against a backdrop of silence from both Russia and North Korea about the North Korean deployment. The Kremlin has not commented on the presence of North Korean troops. At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council last week, Russia declined to answer questions from the U.S about its deployment of North Koreans. North Korea’s state media reported in October that its vice foreign minister in charge of Russian affairs, Kim Jong Gyu, said he had heard a “rumor” spread by foreign media

that troops had been sent to Russia, but declined to confirm it. South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, which oversees inter-Korean relations, said on Thursday that the North has not informed its citizens about the deployment of troops to Russia.