North Korea Deploying 12,000 Troops to Fight Ukraine: Zelensky

About 3,000 North Korean soldiers are now fighting alongside Russian troops, with thousands more still to come, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“North Korean soldiers and officers are already on the territory of Russia, and they are already being used on our territory—3,000 North Korean soldiers,” the Ukrainian president said during an appearance at a conference with Kyiv’s Nordic backers in Reykjavik, Iceland. “We believe that the information from our intelligence is true, and soon they will have 12,000,” he added, in remarks reported by Ukrainian media. “This should happen soon enough.”

Ukrainian and South Korean officials said in recent weeks that between 10,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops had been earmarked to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine.

Kyiv’s GUR military intelligence service said on Thursday that it had detected North Korean troops in the Russian border region of Kursk for the first time the previous day. Ukraine launched an incursion into the region nearly three months ago, which Russia initially struggled to peel back. Moscow hasn’t yet managed to push Kyiv’s troops from Russian soil.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Monday that North Korean units had been deployed to Kursk. The Pentagon separately said that the approximately 10,000 North Korean soldiers training in eastern Russia “will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks.”

“A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a briefing on Monday. The U.S. is “increasingly concerned” that they will be deployed against Ukraine in Kursk, Singh said.

Zelensky said on Friday that the first North Korean troops would “be used by Russia in combat zones” by Sunday or Monday, citing Ukrainian intelligence information.

More than two and a half years into full-scale war in Ukraine, Kyiv and Moscow are looking for new ways to refill their exhausted ranks, with the winter unlikely to provide a reprieve from high casualty counts.

North Korean troops swelling Russian ranks would likely be a very appealing prospect for the Kremlin, staring down the unpopular options of mobilizing more personnel or sending conscripts to Ukraine. It isn’t clear how many troops North Korea is willing to send to aid Russia, but it is a worrying prospect for Kyiv and its smaller pool of potential military recruits.

Western and South Korean officials have widely condemned the move as a dangerous escalation.

Pyongyang and Moscow signed a defense pact earlier this year. North Korea has already provided hefty deliveries of munitions and missiles to Russia. GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov labeled North Korea the “worst problem” Kyiv is contending with among Russia’s allies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was Russia’s “sovereign decision” how to wield its defense relations with North Korea, adding: “It’s our business.”

A Kremlin spokesperson previously dismissed the reports as “fake news,” and a North Korean representative to the United Nations called the allegations “groundless.”

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers on Tuesday that an unspecified number of North Korean generals may have moved towards the fighting, according to Seoul’s Yonhap news agency.

The NIS spy agency said earlier this month that around 1,500 North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia’s far east, then equipped with Russian military uniforms, Russian-made weapons and fake documents claiming the fighters were residents of regions in Siberia. More troops were expected to travel soon, the agency said.

Footage published online by Russian and Ukrainian sources then appeared to show North Korean soldiers at a Russian training ground in the far eastern Primorsky region, which borders North Korea.