Kiev announces new mobilization drive as Russia advances

Kiev has announced a fresh mobilization drive as Moscow seized the mining hub of Selydove and the U.S. said some North Korean troops were in Russia's Kursk region, warning that thousands more were on their way.

Russia has been making swift advances in the eastern Donetsk region for weeks and on Oct. 29 said it "fully" captured Selydove, whose estimated population of around 21,000 people has fled from Moscow's drone and rocket attacks.

Concern has grown in Kiev and the West over North Korea's military cooperation with Russia, with neither the Kremlin nor Pyongyang denying that the reclusive country's troops were in Russia.

The Pentagon said a "small number" of Pyongyang's troops have been deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have held onto land since summer.

Its spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said the U.S. had information that "a couple thousand more [North Korean troops] that are either almost there or due to arrive imminently."

Ukraine has been struggling with deepening manpower shortages over recent months and is embroiled in an unpopular debate about how to bolster the military's ranks.

On Oct. 29, the Secretary of Ukraine's National Security Council Oleksandr Lytvynenko told Parliament that the army planned to recruit another 160,000 people. An AFP source said the recruitment would take place over three months.

Moscow also said it had wrested control of the nearby villages of Bogoyavlenka, Girnyk and Katerynivka, also in the Donetsk region, which President Vladimir Putin claimed was formally part of Russia in late 2022, the year Moscow invaded.

The gains announced by Moscow are just the latest in a string of Russian advances that have gained momentum since February with the collapse of...