North
Korean troops have arrived in Russia to fight Ukraine, says Seoul
Russian navy
ships reportedly transferred 1,500 forces to Vladivostok, where they are being
trained
Pjotr Sauer
Fri 18 Oct
2024 17.35 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/18/north-korean-troops-russia-arrived-ukraine-seoul
South
Korea’s intelligence agency said on Friday that North Korea had dispatched
troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine, a development that could
intensify the standoff between North Korea and the west.
In a
statement on its website, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Russian
navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port
city of Vladivostok between 8 and 13 October who were now undergoing training.
“The North
Korean soldiers … are expected to be deployed to the frontlines as soon as they
complete their adaptation training,” the agency said, adding that more North
Korean troops were expected to be sent to Russia soon.
NIS said
North Korean soldiers were given Russian military uniforms and Russian-made
weapons and were issued with fake ID cards of residents of Yakutia and
Buryatia, two regions in Siberia.
“It appears
that they disguised themselves as Russian soldiers to hide the fact that they
were deployed to the battlefield,” the agency said.
The NIS also
published satellite and other photos showing what it calls Russian navy ship
movements near a North Korean port and suspected North Korean mass gatherings
in the past week in the far-eastern Russian cities of Ussuriysk and Khabarovsk.
The
statement was the most comprehensive official report to date detailing North
Korean involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine. If proved accurate, it would
amount to North Korea’s first major participation in a foreign war.
Additionally,
South Korean media said on Friday, citing anonymous sources, that Pyongyang had
decided to dispatch a total of 12,000 troops, formed into four brigades, to
Russia. The NIS did not immediately confirm these reports.
The
statements come a day after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his
country had intelligence reports that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were
preparing to enter the war. “This is the first step to a world war,” he told
reporters in Brussels.
On Friday
the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, demanded an “immediate and
strong reaction” from Kyiv’s allies. “Russia seriously escalates its aggression
by involving DPRK [North Korea] on a war party scale,” he said. “We require an
immediate and strong reaction from the Euro-Atlantic community and the world.”
Russia has
denied using North Korean troops in the war. A Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry
Peskov, dismissed the claims at a media conference last week as “another piece
of fake news”.
The Nato
secretary general, Mark Rutte, said on Friday that the alliance could not yet
confirm South Korean intelligence that North Korea was deploying large-scale
troops.
The Guardian
earlier revealed that North Korean military engineers had already been deployed
to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles.
A source in
Ukraine said: “There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams
that support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles.”
If
confirmed, South Korean intelligence suggests that North Korea plans to engage
in the war beyond merely sending military advisers. The extraordinary move also
highlights Russia’s need to find new military personnel, amid reports of record
casualties.
North
Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who first
met in 2019, have been seeking greater military and economic cooperation to
counter their growing international isolation prompted by Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine and North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. In
June, the two leaders signed a pact that includes a clause requiring the
countries to come to each other’s aid if either is attacked.
Pyongyang is
estimated to have provided about half the larger-calibre ammunition used on the
battlefield this year, more than 2m rounds, a Ukrainian source said. It also
provided KN-23 missiles, which were used in dozens of strikes across Ukraine
last winter, Ukrainian media reported.
In return
for its missiles and other military hardware, North Korea is thought to be
seeking Russian cash as well as help with its spy satellite programme, which
has had embarrassing failures over the past two years
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