North Korean troops have been deployed to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine had launched a surprise counter-invasion, as 10,000 Pyongyang soldiers are being prepared for the frontlines, officials said.
The Pentagon confirmed Monday that North Korea has sent the soldiers to Russia to train and prepare for combat in Ukraine within “the next several weeks.”
“We are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called the deployment of North Korean troops a “significant escalation” that threatens global security and breaches UN Security Council resolutions.
“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte told reporters Monday morning.
The NATO chief received a briefing on the matter from a South Korean delegation, which has warned for weeks of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in the Ukraine war.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha slammed the West for ignoring the previous warnings from South Korea and Kyiv, calling on its allies to finally unite against the new threat.
“Now NATO Secretary General confirmed this. The bottom line: listen to Ukraine,” Sybiha wrote on X. “The solution: lift restrictions on our long-range strikes against Russia now.”
The Kremlin had repeatedly denied the reports of North Korean soldiers arriving on its shores as nothing more than “fake news” until last Thursday, when Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer denied it.
Both Moscow and Pyongyang stopped short of confirming the deployment, but claimed that such an action would be well within international norms.
Despite the troubling development, Rutte said the presence of North Korean troops on the front line would do little to change the tides of the war, slamming the tactic as a sign of “growing desperation” from Putin.
“Over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Putin’s war and he is unable to sustain his assault on Ukraine without foreign support,” Rutte said.
Last week, South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Cho Tae-yong warned that a total of 3,000 North Korean soldiers have entered Russia so far.
The NIS had estimated that North Korea aimed to deploy a total of 10,000 troops to Russia by December, but Pyongyang appears to have reached that goal already.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set to meet with South Korean officials later this week to discuss the development and potential use of US weapons against Pyongyang forces.
“If we see DPRK troops moving in towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” Singh said. “This is a calculation that North Korea has to make.”
With Post wires
