This footage posted on X, Oct. 18, by the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security of Ukraine shows what appears to be North Korean soldiers receiving apparent Russian gear. Yonhap

A small number of North Korean troops are already in Ukraine, with the numbers expected to rise as North Korean forces finish training in eastern Russia and move toward the front lines of the war, a news report has said.

The report by CNN on Tuesday (U.S. time), if true, would mark a significant development in the North's dispatch of its troops for possible deployment to Ukraine that would pose a major security threat to Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.

Attention has been drawn to whether and when North Korean forces would enter Ukraine, amid reports of the troops moving toward the Kursk border region in western Russia.

"A good many of them are already in action," CNN reported, citing Western intelligence officials.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said "a small number" of North Korean troops are in the Kursk region, and they might be used in "some type of infantry role."

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that a couple thousand more are either "almost there or due to arrive imminently." (Yonhap)