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Zelenskyy's complaint over North Korean troops, 31 October 2024
Summary
A look back at a day when Ukraine's president criticised Western silence and a glide bomb struck Kharkiv.
What did Kyiv expect from its partners when North Korean soldiers appeared in the war? On 31 October 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a blunt answer: more than the "zero response" he said the United States and European nations had offered so far.
The criticism concerned the Russian deployment of North Korean soldiers against Ukraine, a new form of foreign involvement in a war that had begun with Russia's full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. Zelenskyy strongly condemned the lack of reaction from Washington and European capitals.
The pressure behind the complaint
The remark came against a long record of Western support. Later tallies showed that, by 30 June 2025, Ukraine had received roughly €64.6 billion in military aid from the United States and about €84.7 billion from other allies, mostly through drawdowns of existing stockpiles. Against that scale of assistance, Zelenskyy's message on 31 October 2024 was that the arrival of a new foreign force called for a visible response of its own.
Kharkiv under attack
The same day brought a reminder of the daily cost of the war. A Russian glide bomb struck a residential building in Kharkiv, killing three people and injuring 35 others, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
Taken together, the two reports showed the two pressures Ukraine faced on 31 October 2024: a widening circle of foreign participation on the Russian side, and continued strikes on civilian housing. Zelenskyy's public rebuke made plain his view that partners had yet to answer the first.
