After Russia claimed to have retaken the Kursk region from Ukraine, North Korea acknowledged for the first time that it had sent soldiers to fight in Moscow’s war.

North Korea acknowledged for the first time Monday that it had provided troop reinforcements to aid Russia in its war on Ukraine.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has for the first time acknowledged that North Korean soldiers took part in the fighting to recover Russian territory after Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region last year.