There are now almost 11,000 North Korean infantry troops training in eastern Russia, to fight in Ukraine, Kyiv’s Defense Intelligence Directorate has said.
This week has seen multiple reports about Moscow planning to use North Korean soldiers, namely to help push Ukraine’s forces out of Kursk, where they have been carrying out an incursion since August 6.
Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate told The War Zone on Thursday that these battalions will be ready to fight in Ukraine by November 1.
He said the North Korean troops will use Russian equipment and ammunition, with the first cadre made of 2,600 soldiers, sent to Kursk.
“We don’t have the full picture right now,” he added.
Hours before this, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters in Brussels there were about 10,000 North Korean troops preparing to fight for Russia.
He has warned that a third nation’s involvement in the war would be the “first step to a world war,” The Associated Press reported.
It comes after South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) also said that North Korea was planning to deploy between 10,000 and 12,000 troops to Russia, according to Yonhap, a major South Korean news agency.
The NIS reportedly said it was confirming the “beginning of the North’s direct involvement” in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It believes Pyongyang has been transporting special forces from October 8 to 13, with around 1,500 North Korean troops transported in the first phase.
The soldiers are said to have been given Russian uniforms and weapons, as well as fake IDs to disguise them as locals.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense and North Korea’s Mission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations Office, via email, for comment.
AP
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said allies “have no evidence that North Korean soldiers are involved in the fight.”
“But we do know that North Korea is supporting Russia in many ways, weapons supplies, technological supplies, innovation, to support them in the war effort—and that is highly worrying,” he added.
A few days ago, reports emerged of an estimated 18 North Korean soldiers who are believed to have deserted the frontline in Russia.
The troops were deployed in Russia’s Kursk and Bryansk oblasts, about four miles from the border with Ukraine, when they deserted, the public broadcasting company of Ukraine, Suspilne, reported.
Pyongyang and Moscow have been developing their relationship for some time now, pledging earlier this year to provide aid to one another if attacked.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years in June, when he and Kim signed a so-called “comprehensive strategic partnership pact” with a clause similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which states that an attack one member is an attack on all.
Should either country “get into a state of war due to an armed aggression” the other “shall immediately provide military and other assistance with all the means at its disposal,” states the pact, published by North Korean state media.
Last week, South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said: “As Russia and North Korea have signed a mutual treaty akin to a military alliance, the possibility of such a deployment is highly likely.”
