US defense chief says there is evidence North Korea sent troops to Russia – Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON — The United States said Wednesday that 3,000 North Korean troops are stationed in Russia and are training at several locations, calling the move very serious and warning that those forces would be “fair game” if they went into battle in Ukraine.

The deployment raises the potential for the North Koreans to join Russian forces in Ukraine and suggests expanding military ties between the two nations as Moscow seeks weapons and troops to gain ground in a heavy-handed war stalled after more than two years.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called it the “next step” after the North provided Russia with weapons, and said Pyongyang could face consequences for helping Russia directly. His comments were the first public U.S. confirmation that North Korea was sending troops to Russia, a development that South Korean officials disclosed but was denied by Pyongyang and Moscow.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US believed at least 3,000 North Korean troops traveled by ship to Vladivostok, Russia’s largest Pacific port, in early to mid-October.

“These soldiers then traveled to multiple Russian military training sites in eastern Russia where they are currently undergoing training,” Kirby said. “We don’t yet know if these soldiers will go into battle alongside the Russian army, but it’s certainly a very worrying possibility.”

Kirby said they could go to western Russia and then engage in combat against Ukrainian forces, but both he and Austin said the U.S. was still assessing the situation.

Exactly what North Korean troops are doing in Russia “remains to be seen,” Austin told reporters in Rome.

He added: “If they are belligerents, their intention is to engage in this war on behalf of Russia, that is a very, very serious problem and it will have an impact not only in Europe but also in things in the Indo-Pacific.”

However, Kirby warned that “I can tell you one thing, if they deploy to fight Ukraine, they’re fair game.”

He said a key question is what North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stands to gain from this.

Russia and North Korea have sharply increased their cooperation in the past two years, and in June they signed a major defense agreement requiring both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.

South Korean officials worry that Russia could reward North Korea by providing it with sophisticated weapons technology that could boost its nuclear and missile programs aimed at South Korea. South Korea said on Tuesday it would consider supplying arms to Ukraine in response to reports of a troop deployment.

South Korea’s intelligence chief had told lawmakers that 3,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia, receiving training on drones and other equipment before being deployed to the battlefields of Ukraine.

South Korean intelligence first published reports that the Russian navy had taken 1,500 North Korean special warfare troops to Russia this month, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were being prepared to join to the invading Russian forces.

On Wednesday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service director Cho Tae-yong told lawmakers that another 1,500 North Korean soldiers had entered Russia, according to lawmaker Park Sun-won, who attended Cho’s closed-door briefing.

Cho told lawmakers his agency estimated North Korea aimed to deploy a total of 10,000 troops to Russia by December, Park told reporters.

Park quoted Cho as saying that the 3,000 North Korean soldiers sent to Russia were spread across multiple military bases. Cho told lawmakers that the NIS believed they were not yet deployed in combat, Park said.

Also, speaking jointly at the briefing, lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun said the NIS has found that the Russian military is training these North Korean soldiers on how to use military equipment such as drones.

Lee quoted the NIS chief as saying that Russian instructors have a high opinion of the morale and physical strength of North Korean soldiers, but believe they will ultimately suffer heavy casualties because they lack an understanding of modern warfare. Lee, quoting Cho, said Russia was recruiting a large number of translators.

Lee said the NIS had found signs that North Korea was moving family members of soldiers selected to be sent to Russia to special locations to isolate them. The head of the NIS told lawmakers that North Korea had not disclosed the deployment of troops to its own people.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday that North Korea’s troop deployment to Ukraine would mark a “significant escalation” and said he had asked South Korea’s president to send experts to Brussels next week to brief the military alliance.

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, Kyrylo Budanov, told online military news outlet The War Zone on Tuesday that North Korean troops will arrive in Russia’s Kursk region on Wednesday to help Russian troops fighting a Ukrainian invasion.

Last week, South Korea’s spy agency said North Korea had sent more than 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional weapons to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling stockpile of weapons.

Reports that the North is sending troops to Russia have raised security concerns in South Korea. It has sent humanitarian and financial support to Ukraine, but has so far avoided direct arms deliveries in line with its policy of not supplying arms to countries actively engaged in conflict.

North Korea has 1.2 million troops, one of the world’s largest standing armies, but has not been involved in large-scale conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War. Experts question how much North Korean troops would help Russia, citing the lack of of combat experience.

Experts say North Korea wants Russia’s economic support and its help in modernizing the North’s aging conventional weapons systems, as well as its transfers of high-tech weapons technology.

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Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, Iliya Novikov and Hana Arkhirova in Kiev, Ukraine, Danica Kirka in London and Jari Tanner in Helsinki contributed to this report.