PENTAGON — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday that military cooperation between North Korea and Russia “poses a significant security threat to the international community.”

The comments at a Cabinet meeting in Seoul followed Yoon saying Monday that the deployment of North Korean troops to the battlefield in Ukraine could happen “more quickly than anticipated,” according to South Korean intelligence assessments.

The U.S. Defense Department said Monday that North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to train in Russia, more than tripling the previous estimate. 

“We believe that the DPRK has sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters at the Pentagon, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name. 

“A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and we are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk oblast, near the border with Ukraine,” she added.

Earlier on Monday, NATO confirmed that 3,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia to help Moscow fight its war against Ukraine and have also been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region where Kyiv’s forces invaded in a surprise attack in August and still hold territory.

“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters in Brussels after NATO officials and diplomats received a briefing from a South Korean delegation of intelligence and military officials. 

The NATO secretary general said the deployment of North Korean troops was a sign of “growing desperation” on the part of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rutte added that more than 600,000 Russian forces have been killed or wounded since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Pentagon did not provide further details on the type of troops or equipment that North Korea had sent with their troops. When pressed by VOA on what types of capabilities these troops could bring, Singh said, “It’s additional bodies on the battlefield.”

“If we see DPRK troops moving in and towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” she warned.

Russia and North Korea have boosted their political and military alliance since Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, told VOA Friday at a Military Reporters and Editors conference that increased cooperation between the two malign actors is “certainly a cause for more consideration and investigation.”

The Kremlin had dismissed reports about a North Korean troop deployment as “fake news.” But Putin last week did not deny that North Korean troops were currently in Russia and said that it was up to Moscow to decide how to deploy them as part of a mutual defense security pact he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June.

At odds with Putin’s comments, a North Korean representative to the United Nations in New York last week characterized the reports of Pyongyang’s deployment of troops in Russia as “groundless rumors.” 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will host his South Korean counterpart, Kim Yong-Hyun, on Wednesday at the Pentagon, where the two are expected to discuss the North Korean troops who are now in Russia.

Drone warfare 

Ukrainian officials said Tuesday that Russian aerial attacks killed at least four people in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram the attack destroyed two houses and damaged about 20 others.

Russian attacks overnight also targeted Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, injuring at least six people, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said falling debris from a downed Russian drone ignited a fire at a residential building.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine, officials said a Russian rocket attack killed one person.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it shot down seven Ukrainian drones overnight, including two over the Belgorod region, two over Bryansk, two over Kursk and one over the Black Sea.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram the Ukrainian attack damaged several residential buildings.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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