Helping Russia in the war is an opportunity for North Korea to test its new weapons, and Ukrainian officials say the North’s troops are also gaining direct battle experience.

Ukraine called on its allies on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Pyongyang after it said North Korea had become a de facto participant in the war in Ukraine on Russia's side. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told parliament in a speech to outline his victory plan that his spy services had confirmed North Korea's supply of both weapons and people to Russia,

The U.S. and its allies are “alarmed” by North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats as well as its increasing military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday, but couldn’t confirm Ukrainian claims that North Korean soldiers were sent to fight for Moscow.

North Korea blew up the northern parts of inter-Korean roads no longer in use on Tuesday, South Korea said, as tensions between the two keep rising.

North Korea's state media reported on Thursday that road and rail links with South Korea are now completely blocked off after blasting large sections of them on Tuesday as legitimate action taken against "a hostile state" as defined by its constitution.