North Korean troops supporting Russia on the ground in Ukraine is a “shocking” and “desperate” new development in the war, Defence Secretary John Healey has said.
Mr Healey gave a statement to the Commons where he updated MPs as to a £2.26 billion loan to help Ukraine that will be funded by profits on frozen Russian assets.
South Korea’s spy agency said on Friday it had confirmed that North Korea sent 1,500 special operation forces to Russia earlier this month to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korea soldiers were being prepared to join invading Russian forces.
North Korean soldiers supporting Russia’s war of aggression on European soil, it is as shocking as it is desperate
John Healey
The Defence Secretary said it is “highly likely” that the transfer of hundreds of combat troops from North Korea to Russia has already begun.
Mr Healey told MPs: “North Korean soldiers supporting Russia’s war of aggression on European soil, it is as shocking as it is desperate.
“North Korea already sends significant munitions and arms to Russia in direct violation of multiple UN resolutions.
“This developing military co-operation between Russia and the DPRK has serious security implications for Europe and for the Indo-Pacific.
“It represents a wider, growing alliance of aggression which Nato and the G7 nations must confront.
“Despite this dangerous development, Ukraine remains determined to fight on their front line in the east and in the territory in Kursk.”
He added: “This conflict is now at a really critical moment, and that is why the UK continues to step up support for Ukraine.
“Ukrainians are fighting to regain their sovereign territory, but they are also fighting to protect the peace, the democracy and the security for the rest of us in Europe.”
The £2.26 billion loan to Ukraine is the UK’s contribution to a 50 billion-dollar (£38.39 billion) loan package agreed by the G7 group of nations financed through the interest on sanctioned Russian sovereign assets.
The money could be used to fund air defence, artillery or other military equipment and comes on top of the UK’s existing £3 billion-a-year support for Ukraine.
The G7 agreed in June to the loan, using the interest from Russian central bank assets held overseas which were frozen in the immediate aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Mr Healey said it was “profits on frozen Russian money supporting Ukraine’s fight against Putin, turning the proceeds of Putin’s corrupt regime against that regime and putting it in the hands of Ukrainians”.
He added: “Money that will be used by Ukraine to procure military equipment from British companies, boosting our British jobs and our British industry.”
Both the transfer of North Korean weapons and now the threat of combat troops belies weakness and desperation, as the Secretary of State said, not strength on Putin’s part
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said any number of North Korean troops supporting Russia would be a “major escalatory ratchet”.
He told the Commons: “I have lost count of the many times Vladimir Putin has accused us and our allies of so-called escalatory action in our support for Ukraine, but today we are considering the very real threat of North Korean combat troops being sent to support Russia’s illegal invasion.
“Let us be in no doubt any potential agreement between Putin and Kim Jong Un to have North Korean boots on the ground in Ukraine at all, let alone in the numbers that have been reported, would be a major escalatory ratchet by Putin himself.”
He added: “Both the transfer of North Korean weapons and now the threat of combat troops belies weakness and desperation, as the Secretary of State said, not strength on Putin’s part and, above all, it begs the question of what he is offering North Korea in return.”
During Foreign Office Questions, shadow foreign office minister Alicia Kearns called on the Government to “declare North Korea a combatant in the renewed illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said the Government “absolutely condemn what North Korea is reported to have been doing”, and “are deeply concerned about the potential for further transfers, including of ballistic missile-related technology that would obviously jeopardise peace and stability, not only in Ukraine, but indeed across the world.”