North Korea is capable of producing ballistic missiles and supply them to Russia for use in Ukraine within a matter of months, researchers told the UN Security Council (UNSC), following the discovery of North Korean missile remnants on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Jonah Leff, head of UK-based Conflict Armament Research, which tracks weapons used in conflicts including Russia's war against Ukraine, told the UNSC on Wednesday that remnants of four North Korean missiles launched in July and August was found in Ukraine, included one. which indicated it was produced in 2024.

"This is the first public evidence of missiles being manufactured in North Korea and then being used in Ukraine within a matter of months, not years," Leff told the council.

In June, Leff also informed the UNSC that his organization had "irrefutably" determined that ballistic missile remnants found in Ukraine early this year came from a missile manufactured in North Korea.

The report on Russia's use of North Korean missiles in Ukraine came as Pyongyang said its military alliance with Russia was proving "very effective" in deterring the United States and its "vassal powers".

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday, an unnamed North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said Washington and its allies are prolonging the war in Ukraine and destabilizing the security situation in Europe and the Asia-Pacific .

The "madness" of the response by "hostile powers" indicated that increased cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow was effectively "deterring the US and the West's unintended expansion of influence", the official said.

Russia and North Korea recently ratified a mutual defense treaty and more than 10,000 North Korean troops was deployed to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, according to US and South Korean officials.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has confirmed the presence of North Korean troops in Russia. The statement Thursday made no mention of North Korea's involvement in Ukraine or the heavy casualties that Ukrainian and US officials say North Korean troops have suffered in fighting in the Kursk region of Russia.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Thursday that the country's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said at least 100 North Korean soldiers had been killed and about 1,000 wounded so far in the war.

The NIS told South Korean lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that North Korea's inexperienced troops were being used by Russia as a "front-line strike force" and that they suffered casualties due to unfamiliarity with the terrain and not the ability have to respond to drone strikes. ” by Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on social media over the weekend that the losses suffered by North Korean troops were "already noticeable". South Korea, the US, the European Union and eight other countries signed a joint statement on Monday condemning North Korea's growing involvement in Russia's war in Ukraine, which they said constituted a "dangerous extension of the conflict , with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security”.

The US also expressed alarm at the UN-US meeting on Wednesday that Russia is close to accepting a nuclear-armed North Korea.

"Disturbingly, we assess that Russia may be close to accepting North Korea's nuclear weapons program, reversing Moscow's decades-long commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula," said US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

"We believe that Moscow will become more reluctant not only to criticize Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons, but also to further obstruct passage of sanctions or resolutions condemning North Korea's destabilizing behavior," she said.

Russia's UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, did not refer to North Korea's nuclear program when he addressed the council. He defended the growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang as Russia's sovereign right.

"Russian cooperation with the DPRK ... is in accordance with international law, not contrary to it," he said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name.

"It is not directed against any third countries. It poses no threat to states in the region or the international community, and no doubt, we will continue to develop such cooperation,” he added.