North Korean troops deployed to fight in Russia

North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia to boost Vladimir Putin’s war, with NATO warning the move will stoke tensions with Australia and Japan.

Kim Jong-un is lending his military might to his friend Vladimir Putin.

The North Korean dictator is sending thousands of soldiers to fight on the front lines of Ukraine, including in the embattled region of Kursk.

NATO chief Mark Rutte has decried the deployment of North Korean troops to bolster Russia’s war effort in Ukraine as a dangerous expansion of the conflict.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un (C) posing with troops during an inspection at a training base of the Korean People's Army. Thousand of his troops will go to Russia. Picture: AFP

Speaking in Brussels after a briefing with South Korean intelligence officials, Rutte said he could confirm that North Korean military units had been sent to Russia’s western Kursk region.

“The deepening military co-operation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte told a press conference.

“The deployment (of) North Korean troops to Kursk is also a sign of Putin’s growing desperation.”

Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will further exhaust Ukraine as well as stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.

North Korea’s support on the Russian war front with Ukraine will stoke tensions with Japan and Australia, says NATO. Picture: KCNA VIA KNS / AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing intelligence reports, previously claimed that North Korean troops would be on the battlefield within days.

He said his government had information that some 10,000 troops from North Korea were being readied to join Russian forces fighting against his country.

Days before Zelenskyy spoke, American and South Korean officials said there was evidence North Korea had dispatched troops to Russia, with 3,000 North Korean troops already deployed to Russia for training.

South Korea, NATO and the United States have also claimed thousands of North Korean troops are training in Russia.

Rutte said more than 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the conflict started, adding the Kremlin was unable to sustain the invasion without foreign support.

Growing military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang are a major concern for the US and the European Union, as Putin presses ahead with his efforts to build an anti-Western alliance.

Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister who took over the reins of NATO this month, called on Moscow and Pyongyang to “cease these actions immediately”.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte adresses a press conference during a NATO Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium. Picture: AFP

NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, have also been briefed on the situation, he said.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called the deployment a “provocation that threatens global security beyond the Korean Peninsula and Europe”.

Yoon also said South Korea will review its stance on providing weapons to Ukraine.

Seoul has already sold billions of dollars of tanks, howitzers, attack aircraft and rocket launchers to Poland, a key ally of Kyiv.

In June, South Korea agreed to transfer the knowledge needed to build K2 tanks to Poland, which experts have said could be a key step towards production inside Ukraine.

South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace has signed a US$1.64-billion deal with Poland to supply rocket artillery units.

South Korea has voiced “grave concern” as Moscow ratified its defence treaty with Pyongyang. Picture: KCNA VIA KNS / AFP

South Korea voiced “grave concern” on as Moscow moved to ratify its defence treaty with Pyongyang.

Russian politicians have voted unanimously to ratify a defence treaty with North Korea that provides for “mutual assistance” if either party faces aggression. It will now be sent to the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, for approval.

While stopping short of confirming boots on the ground, a North Korean official said any troop deployment to Russia would be in line with international law.

The South Korean government said it “strongly urges the immediate withdrawal of North Korean troops and the cessation of illegal co-operation”.

Seoul “expresses grave concern over Russia’s ratification of the Russia-North Korea treaty amid the ongoing deployment of North Korean troops to Russia,” the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement.

Pupils shelter in a school building during an air alarm in Kursk on October 17, 2024. It is predicted that North Korea will send the first round of troops to this region. Picture: AFP

Seoul said it would work with allies to “take appropriate measures” over the move, and the country – a major arms exporter – has suggested it could revise its longstanding policy that prevents sending weapons directly to Kyiv.

A senior official within the Ukrainian president’s office said the North Korean troops could be deployed either to the Russian region of Kursk or in eastern Ukraine.

Branding the prospect “very worrying”, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it showed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was facing difficulties in the war.

“It is serious and, of course, something that escalates the situation further,” he told German media while visiting India.

Meanwhile, Russia said it took another village in eastern Ukraine, south of the city of Pokrovsk where its forces have been advancing for months.

Moscow’s forces, outnumbering and outgunning the Ukrainian army, have advanced fast towards Pokrovsk since the summer.

Moscow’s defence ministry said troops had taken the village of Tsukuryne, some 25 kilometres south of Pokrovsk. It is one of the larger villages Moscow has claimed in recent weeks in its advance in the Donetsk region.

Moscow has spent months advancing westwards in the embattled Donetsk region. Ukraine has evacuated much of Pokrovsk, a former mining city that was home to some 60,000 people before Moscow launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022.

Thousands have fled the city as Russia advances.

- With AFP

Originally published as North Korean troops deployed to fight in Russia