North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine within “the next several weeks”, the US Pentagon has said.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said some of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine.
“We are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region,” she told reporters.
Ms Singh said US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has already publicly cautioned that should North Korea’s soldiers be used on the battlefield, they would be considered belligerents and legitimate targets but that their use would have serious implications for security in the Indo-Pacific as well.
Nato earlier confirmed that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and that some have already been deployed in Russia’s Kursk region, where Russia is fighting a Ukrainian incursion.
Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters: “Today, I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region.”
Mr Rutte said that the move represents “a significant escalation” in North Korea’s involvement in the conflict and marks “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war”.
His remarks came after a high-level South Korean delegation including top intelligence and military officials as well as senior diplomats briefed the alliance’s 32 national ambassadors at Nato headquarters in Brussels.
Mr Rutte said Nato is “actively consulting within the alliance, with Ukraine, and with our Indo-Pacific partners” on developments, and that he is due to talk soon with South Korea’s president and Ukraine’s defence minister.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely,” he said.
Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army, as well as stoking geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power dynamics. He sought to build a counterbalance to Western influence with a summit of Brics countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing intelligence reports, claimed last Friday that North Korean troops would be on the battlefield within days.
He previously said his government has information that some 10,000 troops from North Korea were being readied to join Russian forces fighting against his country.
Days before Mr Zelensky spoke, American and South Korean officials said there was evidence North Korea had dispatched troops to Russia.
The US said around 3,000 North Korean troops had been deployed to Russia for training.
