South Korea’s spy agency reported Friday that at least 1,500 North Korean Special Forces troops are training in far eastern Russia, and it showed satellite photos tracking their movements. Ukrainian officials have accused North Korea of preparing to send as many as 10,000 troops to fight on Russia’s side against Ukrainian forces, a move that could significantly exacerbate tensions between Pyongyang and the West.
The Pentagon said Thursday that it could not confirm or corroborate reports “on potential North Korean forces going to Russia or Ukraine.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, asked about the South Korean report Friday, said the alliance would discuss it with Seoul to “get all the evidence,” adding that NATO “cannot confirm reports that North Koreans are actively now, as soldiers, engaged in the war effort.”
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it had first tracked a top Pyongyang missile development official visiting Russian front lines in August with dozens of other North Korean officers. They were providing “on-site guidance” to Russian forces using North Korean weapons, the agency said.
Then, from Oct. 8 to 13, the NIS tracked some 1,500 North Korean Special Forces troops moving to eastern Russia. The agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has pledged to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, inspected the troops twice before their deployment.
The troops were issued Russian uniforms, weapons and IDs, Seoul said, and assigned to units composed of Siberian soldiers to try to disguise them as Russians rather than North Koreans.
Seoul also reported that Pyongyang has provided some 13,000 containers of weapons to Russia in as many as 70 shipments since August 2023, including missiles, antitank rockets and up to 8 million desperately needed 122mm and 152mm artillery shells.
“The direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea that foreign media has been reporting has officially been confirmed,” the agency said in a statement.
The NIS does not have a consistent record on its assessments of North Korean leadership and its intentions, though NATO officials have said the alliance corroborated multiple shipments sent to Russia.
A senior NATO official said Thursday that the alliance had confirmed at least 11,000 containers sent from North Korea to Russia since August 2023, with 2 million rounds of artillery.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said it was “certainly very plausible” that some observers were deployed “not necessarily to the front lines, but closer in Russia, to see how North Korean weapons are performing or provide technical assistance on those weapons.”
But he said NATO intelligence could not confirm “large numbers” of North Korean forces being prepared for deployment.
“We have not seen that movement, but the trend of North Korean support is going up,” the official added said. “We’re very concerned about how close that relationship is becoming.”
The South Korean report comes at a difficult moment for Ukraine, as President Volodymyr Zelensky attempts to shore up support for his “victory plan” to end the war. He has traveled to the United States and Europe to plead with partners for support, including permission to use Western weapons to strike inside Russia, and to seek a fast-tracked NATO membership that would provide key security guarantees to the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim signed a mutual defense pact this summer, vowing to expand their military cooperation.
North Korean intervention in foreign wars is rare. If North Korean troops fight in the Russian war, it would be their first major combat effort outside the country. North Korea’s logic is that “a soldier should be inside the country where he or she may be controlled and indoctrinated,” said Fyodor Tertitskiy, an expert on North Korea’s history and military at Seoul’s Kookmin University.
Pyongyang is believed to have sent Putin old Soviet-era munitions that Russia desperately needs, according to U.S., Ukrainian and South Korean officials. U.S. officials say those shipments have included artillery shells and other weapons, and in return, North Korea may be receiving Russian help to advance its own weapons program.
North Korea has a stockpile of Soviet-era weapons that it has maintained since the cease-fire that halted the 1950-1953 Korean War, in case conflict resumes. It has also been training its military for potential conflict, but its young troops lack actual combat experience.
Early on Friday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held an emergency meeting with top national security, defense and intelligence officials to discuss the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia and potential “future response measures,” the presidential office said.
The Washington Post first reported an assessment by the Ukrainians last week that “several thousand” North Korean soldiers are undergoing training in Russia now and could be deployed to the front line in Ukraine by the end of this year.
On Thursday, Zelensky visited Brussels, where he met with top officials to present his plan and told reporters that Ukrainian intelligence has determined that some North Korean officers are already in Ukraine and that some 10,000 more troops are being prepared to fight.
“From our intelligence, we’ve got information that North Korea sent tactical personnel and officers to Ukraine on temporarily occupied territories,” he said.
On Thursday, Ukrainian spy chief Kyrylo Budanov told the War Zone, a military news website, that 2,600 of those North Koreans will be deployed to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise counterattack in August and now controls a chunk of Russian territory.
Among Ukraine’s partners, Zelensky’s victory plan has drawn a muted reaction. A trip to the United States that included meetings with President Joe Biden and presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump did not appear to result in any hoped-for changes in policy, especially on the issue of long-range strikes that Ukraine insists are critical to its success on the battlefield.
Source: The Washington Post
