North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving to the Russian region of Kursk, near Ukraine, according to the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, who described the deployment as a dangerous and destabilising development.
Austin was speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon with the South Korean defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, as concerns grow about Pyongyang’s deployment of as many as 11,000 troops to Russia. The US and South Korea said some of the North Korean troops are heading to Kursk, on the border with Ukraine, where the Kremlin’s forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
Austin said “the likelihood is pretty high” that Russia will use the North Korean troops in combat. He added that officials were discussing what to do about the deployment, which he said had the potential to broaden or lengthen the conflict in Ukraine. Asked if it could prompt other nations to get more directly involved in the conflict, he acknowledged that it could “encourage others to take action”.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations denied that North Korean troops were present on its frontlines, and accused Washington and its allies of “disinformation”.
“These statements about the North Korean soldiers in our front should not surprise no one, because they’re all barefaced lies,” Vassily Nebenzia told the UN security council.
North Korea’s move to tighten its relationship with Russia has triggered alarms across the globe, as leaders worry about how it may expand the war in Ukraine and what Russian military aid will be delivered to Pyongyang in exchange.
Kim said he didn’t necessarily believe the deployment would trigger war on the Korean peninsula, but that it could increase security threats between the two nations. There was a “high possibility” that Pyongyang would ask for higher technologies in exchange for its troop deployment, such as in nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, he said, speaking through an interpreter.
“They’re doing this because Putin has lost a lot of troops,” Austin said, adding that Moscow had a choice between mobilising more of its own forces or turning to others for help. Already, he said, Russia had sought military weapons from other nations, including North Korea and Iran.
The US has estimated there are about 10,000 North Korean troops now in Russia. Seoul and its allies, however, assess that the number dispatched to Russia has increased to 11,000, according to a senior South Korean presidential official, who spoke on condition of anonymity during a background briefing.
More than 3,000 of them are believed to have moved toward combat zones in western Russia, the official said, without specifying the locations. Some North Korean advance units have already arrived in the Kursk region.
A Ukrainian official told the Associated Press that North Korean troops are now stationed 30 miles (50km) away from the Ukrainian border with Russia. The official was not authorised to disclose the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Russia has had to shift some resources to Kursk to respond to Ukraine’s offensive there. US leaders have suggested that the use of North Korean forces to augment Russia’s defences indicates that Moscow’s losses during the war have significantly degraded its military strength.
North Korea has also provided munitions to Russia. Earlier this month, the White House released images it said were of North Korea shipping 1,000 containers of military equipment to Russia by rail.