The South Korean side earned an impressive 5-2 win at the Palace of Sports to take a big step towards promotion to the 2018 IIHF World Championship.

Brandon Bochenski had given Kazakhstan the lead in the first period but Jin Hui-ahn levelled for South Korea, who will compete at next year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang by virtue of being the host nation, shortly after.

Nigel Dawes put the Kazakh side back in front but the South Koreans responded brilliantly with a flurry of goals in the last stanza.

Alex Plante restored parity, before Sanghoon Shin turned the contest on its head with their third.

Further strikes from Plante and Kisung Kim then put the gloss on a brilliant display from the Asian nation.

"We gained momentum. Kazakhstan is a very hard team to play and we’re fortunate to come out with a win," South Korea coach Jim Paek said.

"The more experiences we have in games with teams like Kazakhstan the better we get. 

"We historically don’t have that much experience against teams like Kazakhstan so that helps us."

Ukraine then suffered their second defeat of the competition on home ice as they were beaten 2-1 by Poland.

In Division IB at the SSE Arena in Belfast, hosts Britain got their campaign off to the best possible start by beating Croatia 4-2, while Japan thrashed The Netherlands 6-1.

Lithuania earned a 3-0 win over Estonia in the other match to to take place in Belfast today.

The top two teams from Group A in the round robin contest taking place in the Ukrainian capital will progress to the 2018 edition of the top tournament in the sport, which will be hosted in Denmark.

The lowest ranked team from Group A will be relegated to B, while the last placed country from the latter will head to Division IIA.