Pentagon: North Korean troops training in Russia for Ukraine war

A Pentagon spokesman says 10,000 North Korean troops are currently in Russia training for deployment into the Ukrainian war to fight alongside Russian troops in Kursk, according to multiple media reports.

The deployments could mark an escalation that could potentially involve U.S. ground or air forces.

“If we see DPRK troops moving in towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” warned Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea, reported the Associated Press (AP). “This is a calculation that North Korea has to make.” 

The AP said that on Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte confirmed that some of the North Korean units are already in the Ukrainian theater operations.  

“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte told reporters about the North Korean deployment, according to Reuters. 

Rutte means that North Korea’s decision to fight in Ukraine not only destabilizes Europe but also Asia, where the U.S. and South Korea have been engaged in a decades-long standoff against communist North Korea along the 38^th parallel separating North and South Korea.  

Some of the troops deployed by North Korea include the elite 11th Army Corps, known as North Korea’s special operations troops, reports the Washington Post.  

The troop movements come as both sides prepare for Russia to engage in a counteroffensive in the western Kursk region of Russia, which Ukraine invaded in August, as a part of their attempt to repel the Russian invasion in Ukraine, said the New York Times.  

Previously, The Lion reported growing concern by the United States that North Korea had already deployed troops into the Ukrainian war. 

Those accounts took on added credibility when intelligence information from Ukraine indicated that over a dozen North Korean troops had already defected. 

Rutte told reporters that if North Korean soldiers fight, there will be no new limits imposed on the use of American weapons by Ukraine, said Reuters.  

For its part, Russia accused the US of hypocrisy, citing, the use of Western arms and personnel in Ukraine.  

“Without the help of Western specialists, without space intelligence data, which the Ukrainians, of course, do not have, without specialists in programming flight missions, these [Ukrainian] troops cannot use missile technology,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday via the state-controlled Interfax news agency. “Therefore, Western military personnel have been working in Ukraine for a long time. This is part of the hybrid war of NATO and the European Union against our country. We know this very well.”  

For North Korea, the deployment to Ukraine is part of a jigsaw puzzle war they are fighting against the United States and the South Korean regime for dominance of the Korean peninsula, which has devolved into a stalemate.  

But if North Korea is calculating on increased prestige by special operations troops – their best-of-the-best fighters – fighting alongside their Russian allies in Ukraine, they may come in for a rude awakening, says one military expert. 

In addition to being able to call in South Korean intelligence experts to share information about their North Korean brethren, the Western allies might also turn to South Korea to supply more armaments for the Ukraine government, said Michael C. DiCianna, a research fellow at the Institute of World Politics.  

“This should be an educational experience; if North Korea wishes to prepare its military for a war against modern Western or South Korean equipment, it can learn first-hand about the suffering that can [be] inflicted by an ATACMS barrage, or pinpoint-accuracy ballistic missiles,” added DiCianna. 

ATACMS is the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, a supersonic missile system, manufactured by Lockheed Martin. 

“This system was intended to be used to defeat enemy manpower and lightly armored targets, to disable communications, air defense systems and command centers,” said the specifications sheet. 

In April, the Biden administration sent a secret package of long range ATACMS to Ukraine, which allows Ukraine to strike targets from 300 km. 

The Institute for the Study of War said that so far the U.S. government has restricted the use of the missile system to just 245 military targets, but, as DiCianna suggested, that could change with the deployment of the North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Europe under an “authoritarian military axis.”   

And that might even involve direct U.S. intervention.   

Rep. Michael R. Turner, a Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, warned President Joe Biden in a letter that U.S. action against North Korean troops in the Ukraine war must be unequivocal.  

“If North Korean troops were to invade Ukraine’s sovereign territory, the United States needs to seriously consider taking direct military action against the North Korean troops,” said Turner in a statement.