North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has sent a trusted special forces general to Russia to lead Pyongyang’s troops in Ukraine, Kyiv’s intelligence has said.

General Kim Yong Bok is deputy head of the North Korean army and is a veteran of the country’s Storm Corps special forces.

He is often photographed standing next to Kim Jong-un, smiling sycophantically and taking notes.

In a statement to the UN on Wednesday, Ukraine named Gen Kim as the most senior North Korean officer sent to Russia ahead of its expected entry into the war.

It also called the military alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang a “threat to Europe, the Korean peninsula, its neighbours and beyond”.