Report: North Korean forces prepare to enter the war against Ukraine
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday that his country expects thousands of North Korean troops massed in Russia to soon join the fight against Ukrainian forces.
The US Defense Secretary estimates that there are about 10,000 North Korean troops in the Russian Kursk region, which borders Ukraine and is partially occupied by Kiev forces, and that they have been integrated into Russian formations there.
“Based on what they’ve been trained to do, and the way they’ve been integrated into Russian formations, I fully expect to see them in combat soon,” Austin told reporters during a stop in Fiji in the Pacific, referring to North Korean forces.
Austin said he hadn’t seen any significant reports of North Korean soldiers actively engaged in combat so far.
South Korean government officials and a research group said this week that Moscow is providing fuel, anti-aircraft missiles and economic aid to Pyongyang in exchange for troops that Seoul and Washington accuse North Korea of sending to Russia.
Asked about the North Korean troop deployment last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny it, but instead turned the question into a criticism of Western support for Ukraine.
North Korea said last month that any deployment of troops to Russia would be an act in accordance with international law but hasn’t confirmed sending troops.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has asked its Western allies to provide it with the latest generation of air defense systems to protect itself after it was attacked by a hypersonic ballistic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered to be mass-produced on Friday, vowing to stand firm against his country’s enemies.
Russia said it had struck a military-industrial complex in Dnipro, central Ukraine, for the first time since the war began on Thursday with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile (with a range of 5,500 kilometers) called Oreshnik, which was used in its non-nuclear version.
The missile was launched from the Astrakhan region in southwestern Russia.
