In this propaganda image released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on October 4, 2024, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits a North Korean Army Special Operations Forces training base at an undisclosed location in North Korea.
KCNA | Reuters
North Korea Troops have been sent RussiaThe United States said on Wednesday it was the first time it had publicly confirmed the move, which has unnerved Western allies and could mark a major escalation in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Defense Minister says: “There is evidence that North Korean troops are in Russia” Lloyd Austin He told reporters in Rome, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“What exactly they are doing remains to be seen,” Austin said. He added, “We are working hard to increase the fidelity of it.” He said if North Korea “intends to engage in this war on behalf of Russia,” that is a “serious problem”.
His comment is on South Korea Ukraine and Ukraine have sounded the alarm in recent days, sharing intelligence and expressing dissatisfaction with the lack of urgency in the response from the United States and other Western countries.
The reclusive nature of the Kremlin and Kim Jong UnObservers have pored over social media footage and satellite images for confirmation that Russia is deploying troops to Ukraine, in what would be a dramatic new step in the burgeoning alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow.
North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia and pledged to deploy 10,000 troops by December, South Korean lawmakers said on Wednesday. That’s double the 1,500 people South Korea’s intelligence agency reported last week.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky According to reports, two North Korean troops are undergoing deployment training, each with about 6,000 troops.
“It’s a challenge, but we know how to deal with it. It’s important that partners don’t shy away from this challenge either,” he said in a nighttime video speech.
Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, Director of the General Intelligence Service of Ukraine, told US publication War Zone North Korean troops could arrive as soon as Wednesday in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an invasion in August.
South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday and demanded the withdrawal of North Korean soldiers and “relevant cooperation.” America’s treaty allies, which have so far provided only non-lethal aid to Ukraine, now say they are considering providing defensive and even offensive weapons in response.
State Department deputy spokesman Vidant Patel said on Tuesday that this would “mark a dangerous and highly concerning development” and that the United States was consulting with allies and partners on “the implications of this dramatic move.” .
Austin made no mention of the reports when he visited Kyiv on Monday, where he met with Zelensky and announced $400 million in new military aid.
The United States and other countries say Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with much-needed munitions, including millions of artillery shells, in exchange for key military technology that could be used to bolster Kim’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Russia and North Korea have both denied any arms transfers.
In addition to assisting Russia on the battlefield, the involvement of North Korean troops will solidify the growing relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. Agreement signed in June These include a commitment to mutual defense.
“The Russians would be grateful for some backfill and assistance,” said Frank Ledwich, a former British military intelligence officer and senior lecturer in war studies at the University of Portsmouth.
“This will help them secure and strengthen their artillery supply lines, primarily because North Korea is an artillery power,” he told NBC News.
It could also provide North Korea’s large but largely untested military with critical operational experience and immediate information on the performance of weapons systems under Kim Jong Un, Ledwich and others say. stepping up his war rhetoric to Washington and Seoul.
Reports of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia have also reignited discussions about whether European countries should send their own troops to support Ukraine.
“Whenever there’s talk of European troops going to Ukraine, everyone gets furious and thinks it’s escalating too seriously,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at St. Petersburg University. “And then Russia goes ahead and brings in outside troops.” Scotland’s Andrews .
“The upgrade has already taken place.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attend a state reception in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2024.
Vladimir Smirnov | Reuters
Satellite imagery and facial recognition
South Korea’s intelligence service said last week that North Korea has sent about 1,500 special forces soldiers to neighboring Russia for training aboard ships in Russia’s Pacific Fleet. The agency said they received Russian military uniforms, Russian-made weapons and forged identification documents upon arrival to make them appear to be from the Russian Far East, where people resemble North Koreans.
The agency told NBC News on Wednesday that it has used artificial intelligence facial recognition technology to identify a North Korean soldier seen in photos taken in Ukraine as Ri Song Jin, who also appeared with Kim Jong Un in photos visiting North Korea last year. . South Korean weapons factory.
The agency said the photos showed Lee sitting with a Russian soldier at a North Korean missile launch site in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
The agency said North Korean missile technicians were deployed to frontline areas in Ukraine “to provide support for the use of North Korean missiles, identify technical issues and secure additional technology.”
The agency also released satellite images of a training range in Russia’s Far East last week that it said showed hundreds of North Korean soldiers gathered at the military facility.
North Korea’s envoy to the United Nations dismissed the accusations on Monday, calling them “baseless rumors.” The Kremlin says its cooperation with North Korea does not target any other country.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not directly answer a question about whether North Korean troops were fighting for Russia, saying there were “conflicting messages.”
“South Korea says one thing and then the Pentagon says they don’t confirm such a statement,” he told reporters in Austin on Monday ahead of his comments.
Others have also raised questions about reports of North Koreans in Ukraine, with Andrei Kovalenko, director of Ukraine’s Counter-Disinformation Center, warning that Russia could use the reports for propaganda purposes.
“There are currently no North Korean soldiers,” his office said.
North Korea has the world’s fourth-largest military, with about 1.2 million military personnel, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank. If confirmed, the deployment to Ukraine would mark the first time North Korean troops have been directly involved in the conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Still, their increase would be “incremental,” Ledwich said, and a few thousand troops simply wouldn’t make much of an impact, let alone win the war for Russia.
He said it was more of a political statement, signaling a deepening alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang and would provide a training ground for inexperienced North Korean soldiers, exacerbating concerns in Seoul.
“North Korea can bring back some combat experience,” he said.
The language barrier between Korean-speaking and Russian-speaking soldiers will be another obstacle.
“They’re not going to break up the North Koreans and stuff them into Russian troops,” O’Brien said. “That would be a disaster.”
“We will see South Korean forces operating together as a South Korean formation. South Korean forces will be in contact with the Russians and they will get orders back and forth,” he said.
He said the first troops would likely undergo a “trial run”. “If it works out, I guess they’ll come back.”
