Thousands of North Korean soldiers – up to “3,000” – have been sent to Russia, the United States said on Wednesday, with Kyiv and the West seeing the risk of a major escalation in the war in Ukraine.
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“We have proof that North Korean troops went to (…) Russia,” US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin told reporters.
“What exactly are they (the North Koreans) doing? That remains to be seen,” he continued. “If they are cobelligerents, if they intend to participate in this war on behalf of Russia, that is a very, very serious question.”
American President Joe Biden also warned on Wednesday that “the tyrants” will have to pay: the United States announced a loan of 20 billion dollars to Ukraine which will be repaid by the interest on frozen Russian assets, in the framework of G7 action.
According to Washington, “between early and mid-October, North Korea moved at least 3,000 troops” into eastern Russia, confirming information provided by South Korea.
“We believe that these soldiers traveled by boat from the Wonsan region of North Korea to Vladivostok, Russia, and joined several Russian military training sites in eastern Russia, where they are currently undergoing training,” said White House spokesperson John Kirby.
The United States does not know whether it will fight alongside the Russian army, he said, although he called it a “very worrying possibility.”
But if this is the case, these soldiers will be “legitimate military targets”, he warned.
“Unfounded rumor”
In Brussels, a NATO spokeswoman warned of a “significant escalation of North Korea’s support for Russia’s illegal war.”
This is the first time that Washington and its allies have publicly discussed “evidence” of the presence of these North Korean soldiers on Russian soil.
According to South Korea, some of them must subsequently go to the front.
North Korea has denied providing Russia with forces for its Ukraine offensive, with Pyongyang’s UN representative calling it a “baseless rumor.”
“The armed forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exist, and where are they located? Please ask Pyongyang!”, Russian diplomatic spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday, denouncing “media hype”.
“Don’t die for no reason”
Some 10,000 North Korean troops are to be deployed on Russian territory by December, Rep. Park Sun-won, a member of the parliamentary committee on intelligence, told reporters in Seoul after a briefing. with the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Boudanov, for his part announced that the first North Korean soldiers should arrive on Wednesday in the Russian region of Kursk, bordering Ukraine. Kyiv has controlled several hundred square kilometers there since its surprise offensive launched in early August.
South Korean intelligence assured last week that North Korea had decided to send up to 12,000 troops to help Russia and that some 1,500 men from its special forces were already in Russia to acclimatize before leave for the front.
Ukraine called on Wednesday for the surrender of North Korean fighters already on its territory.
“You should not die without reason in a foreign country,” a service run by Ukrainian military intelligence wrote in a message to them.
German fears
On Wednesday, the German Foreign Ministry announced that it had summoned North Korea’s charge d’affaires, citing a possible “violation of international law.” His Austrian counterpart announced that he had done the same thing.
After almost three years of war, Ukraine finds itself in a critical military situation, its troops retreating for months on the eastern front.
The Russian army, more numerous and better armed, very regularly claims the conquest of villages, mainly in the Donetsk region, and advances towards Pokrovsk, an important node for Ukrainian military logistics.
It also continues to bomb Ukrainian cities and regions almost daily, due to a lack of sufficient anti-aircraft defense systems.
In this regard, the Ukrainian Red Cross announced on Wednesday that one of its offices located in the Donetsk region, very close to the front line, had been destroyed “following a Russian attack”, which was not no victims.
