Addition of North Korean soldiers will stoke regional tensions and further stretch Ukraine’s weary army in the almost three-year war
North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in the Ukraine war within “the next several weeks,” the Pentagon has said, in a move that western leaders say will intensify the almost three-year war and jolt relations in the region.
Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Monday, and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
Earlier on Monday, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.
Adding to concerns about the two countries’ growing cooperation over Russia’s war in Ukraine, North Korean state media said on Tuesday a delegation led by foreign minister Choe Son Hui had left Pyongyang for an official visit to Russia, without elaborating.
Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since the second world war will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army. It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, western officials say.
