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Although Russia and North Korea have strengthened their military and political ties throughout the conflict, Pyongyang’s troops going to war with Kyiv’s forces would be a major step up.
As NATO warned of a dangerous expansion of the war in Ukraine, the Pentagon said Monday that North Korea had sent about 10,000 troops to train in Russia, more than tripling the previous estimate.
Although Russia and North Korea have strengthened their military and political ties throughout the conflict, Pyongyang’s troops going to war with Kyiv’s forces would be a major step up.
Using an acronym for North Korea’s official name, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters, “We believe that the DPRK has sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks.”
“We are growing more concerned that Russia plans to use those soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast,” Sabrina Singh stated, adding that some of those soldiers had already approached Ukraine.
North Korean forces in Russia may increase “as Putin’s desperation continues to rise,” the Russian president said, adding that his country’s forces have reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Ukraine.
On October 23, John Kirby, the spokesperson for the US National Security Council, stated that there were over 3,000 North Korean troops in Russia and warned that they would be “legitimate military targets” if they fought against Ukraine.
The use of North Korean forces to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine was denounced by NATO chief Mark Rutte on Monday as a risky extension of the conflict that revealed Putin’s “growing desperation.”
According to experts, North Korea is probably hoping to obtain military equipment in exchange for the troops, such as submarines and surveillance satellites, as well as potential security assurances from Moscow. The UN has sanctioned both Russia and North Korea: Moscow for the war in Ukraine, and Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons programme.