The US and its allies have raised the alarm after Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that North Korea was sending thousands of soldiers to help Russia in its war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president claimed on Thursday that his government had intelligence that nearly 10,000 soldiers from North Korea were being prepared to join the Russian forces fighting in his country.
Mr Zelensky made the claim, without offering further details, a day after US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell said Washington and its allies were concerned by North Korea’s military support for Russia.
“From our intelligence, we’ve got information that North Korea sent tactical personnel and officers to Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky told reporters at the Nato headquarters in Brussels.
“They are preparing on their land 10,000 soldiers, but they didn’t move them already to Ukraine or to Russia.”
Mr Zelensky warned that any third country wading into the conflict, in this case North Korea, would be “the first step to a world war”.
Both Russia and Ukraine have received weapons imports from allies since Vladimir Putin invaded in February 2022, with Ukraine’s own war effort increasingly reliant on money and arms from Western partners. But neither has yet been backed up by large deployments of troops from a third country.
The BBC quoted a Russian military source as saying a “number of North Koreans” had arrived in the country’s Far East. Sources on the Ukrainian side claimed the Russian military was forming a unit of around 3,000 North Koreans, while the Russian source said the number was “absolutely nowhere near” that figure.
What is the extent of North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war?
North Korea is forging closer military ties with Russia just as it is severing relations with South Korea, prompting the US, Japan, South Korea and eight other Western governments to form a new multinational team to monitor the enforcement of sanctions against Pyongyang.
The US Department of the Treasury claimed in May that Moscow had used more than 40 ballistic missiles from North Korea in its attacks across Ukraine as well as other munitions in breach of UN Security Council resolutions.
Mr Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly signed a mutual aid agreement in June to facilitate the transfer of ammunition and missiles for Moscow’s war effort.
The US State Department said there were signs that North Korea was increasing its supply of weapons like artillery shells and missiles to Russia which was “creating further instability in Europe”.
Are North Koreans already fighting for Russia?
Ukrainian media reported this month that six North Korean soldiers had been killed in a missile strike in eastern Donetsk on 3 October. The reports have not been confirmed.
“The issue of deploying regular troops is highly likely due to the mutual agreements that resemble a military alliance” between Pyongyang and Moscow, South Korean defence minister Kim Yong-Hyun said earlier this month.
The Kremlin rejected the claim, calling it “yet another fake news story”.
A North Korean troop deployment, if confirmed, would bolster the fast-diminishing ranks of the Russian military. Neither side makes casualty figures public, but the New York Times reported Russia had seen at least 115,000 soldiers killed and 500,000 wounded since the start of the war over two years ago.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported last month that about one million Ukrainians and Russians had been killed or wounded since the war began.
There have been reports in the past that North Korea sent civilian workers to help with reconstruction efforts in occupied Ukrainian regions captured by Russia after the war started in February 2022.
How does sending troops to Ukraine benefit Pyongyang?
North Korea’s strategic partnership with Moscow has deepened significantly since Mr Kim travelled to Russia for a rare foreign visit last year.
Mr Putin then visited the North this year and the two leaders signed a defence pact that called for mutual assistance “using all available means” in the event of aggression against either country.
The North would receive Russian funds for sending troops to the Ukrainian frontline, money which Pyongyang needs to build its nuclear force, said Andrei Lankov, director of a security analysis firm Korea Risk Group.
“Pyongyang would be paid well and maybe get access to Russian military technology, which otherwise Moscow would have been reluctant to transfer to North Korea,” Mr Lankov told the BBC.
“It would also give their soldiers real combat experience, but there is also the risk of exposing North Koreans to life in the West, which is a considerably more prosperous place.”
US National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said that any North Korean involvement in the war would represent a significant increase in its defence ties with Russia.
“It also indicates a new level of desperation for Russia as it continues to suffer significant casualties on the battlefield in its brutal war against Ukraine,” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
In a show of support, Russia in March vetoed a UN resolution that effectively abolished monitoring by UN experts of Security Council sanctions against North Korea. It prompted Western accusations that Moscow was acting to shield its arms purchases from Pyongyang to fuel its war in Ukraine.
North Korea has shipped about 7,000 containers filled with munitions to Russia since last year and in return for 9,000 Russian containers likely filled with aid, South Korea has claimed.
How are the US and its allies responding?
US officials this week said they could not confirm Ukrainian claims about the deployment of North Korean soldiers but were still evaluating reports.
“We are concerned by them and … we agreed that we will continue to monitor the situation closely,” the State Department said on Wednesday.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said the alliance had “no evidence that North Korean soldiers are involved in the fight”.
He said it was “highly worrying” anyway that North Korea was supporting Russia through “weapons supplies, technological supplies, innovation, to support them in the war effort”.
The US, Japan and South Korea issued a joint statement condemning North Korea for its nuclear and missile developments, deepening military cooperation with Russia and engaging in allegedly illegal activities to fund its weapons programmes. The statement also highlighted Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defend its allies.