Ukrainian forces have fired at North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region, marking the first time soldiers from the two countries have engaged in combat, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing a Ukrainian intelligence official.

Pyongyang has vowed to back Russia until it achieves victory over Ukraine. “Our traditional, historically friendly relations, which have traveled the tested path of history, today ... are rising to a new level of relations of invincible military comradeship,” the North’s foreign minister Choe Son Hui said during her trip to Moscow last week.

ROME - Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven democracies and three key allies said on Tuesday they were gravely concerned by the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia and the possibility they may be used in the war against Ukraine.

Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. Ukrainian officials said on Monday that their forces had fired at North Korean soldiers in combat for the first time since their deployment by Russia to its western Kursk region.

Few details were given about the clash, which reportedly took place in the Kursk region of Russia, which has been under partial Ukrainian occupation since this summer

Top South Korean and European Union officials on Monday strongly condemned North Korea's reported troop dispatch to aid Russia's war against Ukraine and agreed to work together to try to block deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Putin bombs Kharkiv supermarket as UN ‘very concerned’ by North Korean troops - US says North Korea has deployed 10,000 troops in Russia, with more than half of them in the Kursk region

South Korea and the European Union on Monday jointly condemned North Korea's supply of weaponry to Moscow and demanded that it withdraw troops it has sent as Russia wages war against Ukraine. The EU and South Korea were holding their first "Strategic Dialogue" meeting in Seoul,

South Korea’s president has suggested Seoul could supply weapons to Kyiv, marking a major foreign policy shift.