North Korean troops are already inside Ukraine, according to two western intelligence officials.
I had a call with the @President_KR of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol. First and foremost, I thanked him for South Korea’s consistent support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as for the financial and humanitarian assistance already provided and…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 29, 2024
The officials expect the number of troops to grow as the North Koreans complete training in eastern Russia and move towards the front lines of the war. The presence of North Korean troops inside Ukraine goes beyond what NATO and the Pentagon confirmed on Monday.
”Finland and China have been engaged in delicate diplomacy since last October over the possible role of a Hong Kong-registered cargo vessel in the damage caused to the Balticconnector gas pipeline.” https://t.co/G0TMY5k218
— Mika Aaltola (@MikaAaltola) October 29, 2024
They stated that roughly 10,000 North Korean troops are training in eastern Russia, with some en route to Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian troops have held territory inside Kursk since August. It seems that a good many of them are already in action,” one of the officials said on Tuesday, referring to the North Koreans.
The security of Europe and East-Asia are interlinked.
North Korean soldiers are deployed to support Russia’s war of aggression.
It's a grave escalation in this war and a threat to global peace.
We will respond together with our like-minded partners, I told @President_KR ⭣
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 28, 2024
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated last week that Ukrainian intelligence assessed that the troops would start to enter combat zones on Sunday. However, a US official said the US could not yet corroborate reports that North Korean troops are already inside Ukraine. US and South Korean diplomatic and military officials are meeting in Washington, DC this week to discuss the deployment and North Korea’s “expanding relationship with Russia” more broadly, according to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
On reports that troops from 🇰🇵 could soon join 🇷🇺 on the battlefield in 🇺🇦 and how 🇰🇷 will respond, @graham_euan tells the @guardian: “The big question is whether Seoul will relax restrictions on direct military aid [for 🇺🇦].”
Read more 👇https://t.co/enT5xfT4d3
— ASPI (@ASPI_org) October 28, 2024
Separately, top Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak is in the US capital Tuesday for meetings with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Yermak said he and Sullivan discussed the “North Korean soldiers whom Russia is preparing for war.”
South Korean officials also traveled to NATO headquarters on Monday and briefed allies on the North Korean deployments. NATO allies hope that the intelligence spurs South Korea to begin providing military aid to the Ukrainians, which would be at odds with South Korea’s longstanding policy of not arming countries at war.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said last week, “While we have maintained our principle of not directly supplying lethal weapons, we can also review our stance more flexibly, depending on the level of North Korean military activities.”
It is still unclear how helpful the North Koreans will be to the Russians on the battlefield. Many of the troops deployed are special forces, according to the sources.
North Korean troops enter Ukraine conflict
Intelligence assessments suggest that the North Korean government believes their troops have more combat power than regular Russian troops because they are better trained and specialized. However, North Korea’s military has not fought in an actual war for over 70 years, and intelligence officials believe the North Korean government sent them in large part so they could gain combat experience. Officials also expect that at least some of the troops will desert their units once they get to the battlefield, and that the language barrier with the Russians will be a significant impediment to conducting seamless operations.
The Russians have been teaching North Korean soldiers basic Russian commands in training, like “fire” and “in position,” South Korean lawmakers told reporters on Tuesday. Some Russian troops are already raising concerns about how the North Korean soldiers will be commanded and provided with ammunition and military kit. South Korean intelligence has put the number of North Korean troops inside Russia right now at about 13,000, higher than the US and the UK assessments.
The number could go up further, as the US has already revised its assessment upward from last week, when the White House assessed that only about 3,000 North Korean troops were in Russia. “The number may rise,” a third western official said. Allies and partners across the globe are watching and consulting and will proactively share intelligence on the matter as it affects the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions and beyond.”
In addition to military personnel, North Korea has provided Moscow with 11,000 containers of ammunition consisting of around 2 million artillery rounds since last year, according to a senior NATO official.
The US has also been urging China, which maintains a relationship with Pyongyang, to intervene and pressure the North Koreans to pull back, officials said. Sullivan directed the US government to engage the PRC to organize an effort to get other countries to reach out to the PRC as well over concerns about DPRK sending troops into Russia and the implications of that. “We have communicated with the PRC about this matter to make clear that we are concerned about it, and that they ought to be concerned about this destabilizing action by two of its neighbors, Russia and North Korea,” Miller said.
However, western officials are not optimistic that China will intervene with North Korea’s plans, according to sources. China has continued to be a “critical enabler” of Russia’s war efforts, according to the NATO official, and is still fueling Russia’s defense industry with substantial amounts of dual-use goods like microelectronics and machine tools that can be used to build weapons.
