North Korean soldiers are training in a Russian military camp ahead of joining Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, according to the Ukrainian government which has released a video that it says backs up its claims.
Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security published footage that follows comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that around 10,000 North Korean soldiers are being trained to join the Russian army.
A video posted by Ukrainian outlets on Friday purports to show North Korean personnel at the Sergeevsky training ground in Russia’s Far Eastern Primorye region standing in line to get equipment.
The video has not been independently verified and Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov alleged that the first group of 2,600 soldiers will be deployed to Russia’s Kursk Oblast where Ukraine staged an incursion in August and that around 11,000 North Korean troops will be “ready to fight” in Ukraine by the start of next month.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said on Friday that Pyongyang had sent 1,500 troops from Chongjin, Hamhung, and Musudan in North Korea to Vladivostok between October 8 and 13 and that a second batch would be sent soon.
The NIS posted satellite imagery of a Russian ship near North Korea showing personnel gathered at Russian military facilities in Ussuryisk and Khabarovsk.
The Washington D.C.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian and Russian sources have substantiated intelligence reports and footage “appears consistent with reports of North Korean troop deployments to Russia but does not independently validate” the claims.
Retired Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan said Pyongyang’s alleged involvement poses the question of whether an additional belligerent should change U.S. and NATO policy in the war.
In a Substack post published Saturday, Ryan argued that the U.S. and NATO should at least provide air and missile defense over Ukraine “like Western nations do for Israel.”
“This is a significant escalation of the war by Russia,” Ryan wrote. “If Putin can bring in North [Korean] troops, and NATO stands by, it confirms that the U.S. and its allies are more concerned about Russia losing than Ukraine losing. That would be a considerable strategic and moral failure by the West.”
Meanwhile, questions over whether Pyongyang’s alleged involvement in the war breached a “red line” for the U.S. and NATO was the subject of a letter by U.S. Representative Mike Turner to President Joe Biden demanding answers.
The Ohio Republican said that such troop movements “are alarming” and require an “immediate response from the United States and our NATO allies to avoid a widening conflict.”
Newsweek has also contacted the U.S. State Department and NATO for comment.
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