North Korea sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to likely fight against Ukraine: Pentagon

North Korea sends troops to Russia to fight Ukraine, intensifying conflict and raising geopolitical tensions in Indo-Pacific.

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and likely fight against Ukraine within “the next several weeks,” the U.S. Pentagon said Monday (October 28, 2024), in a move that Western leaders say will intensify the almost three-year war and jolt relations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.

Earlier Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte NATO confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.

Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II 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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power dynamics. He sought to build a counterbalance to Western influence with a summit of BRICS countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week. He has sought direct help for the war from Iran, which has supplied drones, and North Korea, which has shipped large amounts of ammunition, according to Western governments.

Mr. Rutte told reporters in Brussels that the North Korean deployment represents “a significant escalation” in Pyongyang's involvement in the conflict and “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”

U.S. President Joe Biden also called the deployment “dangerous. Very dangerous.”