The war in Ukraine is about to cross a new threshold with the direct involvement of a third country, North Korea, raising fears of an escalation unprecedented since the Russian invasion in February 2022. On Friday, October 18, South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced that Pyongyang had decided to send "large-scale troops" to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine. A total of 12,000 North Korean troops from four brigades, including special forces, are expected to be deployed.
According to the NIS, 1,500 soldiers arrived in Russia by Russian warships between October 8 and 13. They will be stationed at military bases in the Far East, in Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk, and are expected to join the front lines on completion of their training. The NIS has released detailed satellite images showing, it claims, the first of these deployments. A second round of transfers is expected to take place shortly, the service claims.
The previous day, Volodymyr Zelensky had reported concordant information from Ukrainian intelligence services. "From our intelligence, we've got information that North Korea sent tactical personnel and officers to Ukraine. They are preparing on their land 10,000 soldiers, but they didn't move them already to Ukraine or to Russia," the Ukrainian president said on Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, after a European summit where he had come to defend his "victory plan." "This is the first step to world war," he warned. Russia denounced this as "fake news."
The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, General Kyrylo Budanov, said on Friday that the 10,000 North Korean troops currently undergoing training in Russia "will be ready [to fight in Ukraine] on 1 November." "The troops will be using Russian equipment and ammunition," he added. He told the War Zone website that some 2,600 of the first North Korean soldiers will be sent to the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have occupied around 1,000 km2 since their offensive on August 6. Budanov said he did not know, at this stage, where the thousands of others would be deployed. North Koreans are reportedly already present in the occupied part of Ukraine, the Donbas. According to Ukrainian media reports, six of them were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack near Donetsk on October 3.
For the time being, the West has not confirmed the deployment of these North Korean soldiers but has expressed its concern. NATO said it could not confirm "at this moment," "but this, of course, might change." A few days earlier, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had said that "we do know that North Korea is supporting Russia in many ways. By weapons supplies, technological supplies, innovation to support them in the war effort, and that is highly worrying."
You have 65.69% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.