The Pentagon says North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to train in Russia, more than tripling the previous estimate.
"We believe that the DPRK has sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name.
“A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and 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 oblast, near the border with Ukraine,” she added.
Earlier on Monday, NATO confirmed that 3,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia to help Moscow fight its war against Ukraine and have also been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region where Kyiv’s forces invaded in a surprise attack in August and still hold territory.
"The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security," NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters in Brussels after NATO officials and diplomats received a briefing from a South Korean delegation of intelligence and military officials.
The NATO secretary general said the deployment of North Korean troops was a sign of "growing desperation" on the part of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rutte added that more than 600,000 Russian forces have been killed or wounded since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The Pentagon did not provide further details on the type of troops or equipment that North Korea had sent with their troops. When pressed by VOA on what types of capabilities these troops could bring, Singh said, “It’s additional bodies on the battlefield."
"If we see DPRK troops moving in and towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” she warned.
Russia and North Korea have boosted their political and military alliance since Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, told VOA Friday at a Military Reporters and Editors conference that increased cooperation between the two malign actors is “certainly a cause for more consideration and investigation.”
The Kremlin had dismissed reports about a North Korean troop deployment as "fake news." But Putin last week did not deny that North Korean troops were currently in Russia and said that it was up to Moscow to decide how to deploy them as part of a mutual defense security pact he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June.
At odds with Putin’s comments, a North Korean representative to the United Nations in New York last week characterized the reports of Pyongyang’s deployment of troops in Russia as "groundless rumors."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will host his South Korean counterpart, Kim Yong-Hyun, on Wednesday at the Pentagon, where the two are expected to discuss the North Korean troops who are now in Russia.
Drone warfare
On the battlefront, Ukraine’s military said Monday that Russian forces attacked overnight with 100 aerial drones targeting areas across the country.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 66 of the drones, with most of the intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Khmelnytskyi and Kyiv regions.
Ukrainian air defense also downed drones over Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil and Zhytomyr.
But Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that Russian attacks hit residential buildings in the city of Kherson, killing at least two people.
In Kharkiv, officials reported strikes from Russian guided bombs and shelling, including attacks that damaged an apartment building and a house.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that at least 13 people were injured in the attacks that hit three districts of the city.
Russia’s defense ministry reported that it destroyed 21 Ukrainian drones that were used in overnight attacks targeting Russian sites.
Some information for this story was provided by Reuters and The Associated Press.
