An estimated 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia to train and fight against Ukraine in “the next several weeks”, the Pentagon has announced, significantly increasing the estimated number of soldiers deployed by North Korea and raising fears the war in Ukraine could widen as a result of Pyongyang’s military intervention.
Some of the 10,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to eastern Russia for training – up from an initial US estimate of 3,000 last week – have moved closer to the Ukrainian border, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Monday.
“A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and 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 Oblast near the border with Ukraine,” Singh told reporters.
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol said the North Korean military deployment threatened both his country’s national security and the international community, denouncing on Tuesday what he described as “illegal” military cooperation between Russia and North Korea.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said earlier on Monday that the North Korean deployment represents “a significant escalation” in the Ukraine conflict and was “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war”.
“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte told reporters after talks with a South Korean delegation about the North Korean deployments.
A North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official did not confirm media reports about a troop deployment to Russia but said if Pyongyang had taken such action, he believed it would be in line with international norms.
‘Fake news’
Moscow initially dismissed reports about North Korean involvement in its war on Ukraine as “fake news”. But President Vladimir Putin has not denied that North Korean troops are in Russia and said it was an internal matter of how he implemented any partnership treaty with Pyongyang.
Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov shrugged off Rutte’s comments on Monday and noted that Pyongyang and Moscow signed a joint security pact last June.
Lavrov also claimed that Western military instructors have long been covertly deployed to Ukraine to help its military use long-range weapons provided by Western partners.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet their South Korean counterparts later this week in Washington, DC to discuss the North Korean involvement in Ukraine.
“If we see DPRK troops moving in towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” Singh said, using the acronym for the country’s official name – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. She noted that there “will be no limitations on the use of US-provided weapons on those forces”.
“This is a calculation that North Korea has to make,” Singh said.
South Korea’s national news service Yonhap said President Yoon had told a cabinet meeting that the country must “thoroughly assess all possibilities and prepare countermeasures”, amid the North Korean military cooperation with Russia.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv had been warning about the North Korean deployment for weeks and accused allies of failing to deliver a strong response.
“The bottom line: listen to Ukraine. The solution: lift restrictions on our long-range strikes against Russia now,” he said on social media.
The US, however, has given no indication that it will approve Ukraine’s request to use its weapons to strike deep inside Russia.