BRUSSELS (AP) – North Korea will send about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine in the “coming weeks,” the Pentagon said Monday. The move, Western leaders say, is an escalation of nearly three years of war and shock. Relations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said some North Korean soldiers were already close to Ukraine and were believed to be headed for the Kursk border area, where Russia is struggling to push back against its invasion.
Earlier on Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.
The addition of thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will increase pressure on Ukraine’s exhausted and overburdened military. It would also raise geopolitical tensions on the Korean peninsula and across much of the Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power relations. He convened a summit of BRICS countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week to try to build a balance against Western influence. According to Western governments, he asked for direct aid to the war from Iran, which supplied the drones, and North Korea, which shipped large amounts of ammunition.
Rutte told reporters in Brussels that the latest deployment to North Korea marks a “serious escalation” of North Korea’s involvement in the conflict and a “dangerous escalation of Russia’s war.”
President Joe Biden also called the deployment “dangerous.” It’s very dangerous. ”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with their South Korean counterparts in Washington later this week.
Shin said Austin and Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun are scheduled to discuss the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Ukraine. Singh said there are no restrictions on the use of US-supplied weapons against these forces.
“If you see North Korean troops marching towards the front lines, they are republicans at war,” Shin said, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). “This is a calculation that North Korea has to make.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Rutte’s comments, pointing out that North Korea and Russia signed a joint security agreement in June last year. He stopped short of confirming that North Korean soldiers were in Russia.
Lavrovov claimed that military instructors from Western countries have long been secretly sent to Ukraine to help the Ukrainian military use long-range weapons provided by Western partners.
Ukraine, whose defense in the eastern region of Donetsk is under intense Russian pressure, could receive even more bleak news in next week’s US presidential election. If Donald Trump wins, key U.S. military aid could be reduced.
In Moscow, the Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that Russian troops had captured the Donetsk village of Tskurine. The village is the latest to succumb to the slow-moving Russian onslaught.
Rutte spoke in Brussels after a high-level South Korean delegation, including intelligence and military officials and senior diplomats, briefed 32 ambassadors from the alliance’s countries at NATO headquarters.
Rutte said NATO is “actively consulting within the alliance, with Ukraine, and with partners in the Indo-Pacific” about the development. He said he plans to meet with the South Korean president and Ukraine’s defense minister soon.
“We will continue to closely monitor the situation,” he said. He did not take questions after his statement.
European officials who were present during the 90-minute exchange and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the security briefing said South Korea provided no evidence of North Korean troops in Kursk.
It is unclear when and how NATO allies will react to North Korea’s involvement. For example, Ukraine could lift restrictions that prevent it from using Western-supplied weapons for long-range attacks inside Russian territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy claimed last Friday that North Korean troops would be on the battlefield within days, citing intelligence reports.
He previously said the government had received information that about 10,000 North Korean troops were ready to join Russian forces fighting North Korea.
Days before Zelenskiy’s speech, U.S. and South Korean officials said there was evidence that North Korea had sent troops to Russia.
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Kopp reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Barry Hutton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.
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