US says ‘evidence’ North Korea has sent troops to Russia

Seoul’s intelligence agency says double the number of soldiers previously stated sent to fight against Ukraine.

The United States has said there is evidence that North Korea has sent soldiers to Russia as South Korea said about 3,000 soldiers are being trained before being deployed to battlefields in Ukraine.

Confirming their presence on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Rome that further clarity was needed on what the soldiers have been doing there.

“There is evidence that there are [North Korean] troops in Russia,” Austin said. “What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”

The National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s spy agency, said on Wednesday that another 1,500 North Korean soldiers joined the 1,500 the agency recently estimated had reached Russia earlier in October.

North Korea has promised to provide about 10,000 soldiers to Russia, whose deployment was likely to be completed by December, South Korean legislators told journalists.

“Signs of troops being trained inside North Korea were detected in September and October,” said Park Sun-won, a member of a parliamentary intelligence committee.

“It appears that the troops have now been dispersed to multiple training facilities in Russia and are adapting to the local environment.”

The NIS said last week that North Korea had sent more than 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously accused Pyongyang of preparing to send at least 10,000 soldiers to Russia, calling on allies on Tuesday to respond.

Russia has dismissed the troop deployments as “fake news”, while North Korea has attempted to keep news of the dispatch from spreading, said South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun.

“There are also signs of North Korean authorities relocating and isolating those [soldiers’] families in a certain place in order to effectively control them and thoroughly crack down on the rumours,” Lee said, citing the spy agency.

He said the agency confirmed that Russia had recruited a “large number” of interpreters for the North Korean soldiers, while training them to use military equipment, such as drones.

“Russian instructors are assessing that the North Korean military has excellent physical attributes and morale but lacks understanding of modern warfare such as drone attacks,” the lawmaker added.

North Korea and Russia, embroiled in separate confrontations with the West, have been bolstering their cooperation over the past two years. In June, they signed a major defence deal requiring both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.

Germany on Wednesday summoned North Korea’s envoy over Pyongyang’s support to Russia.

“North Korea’s support of the Russian war of aggression directly threatens Germany’s security and the European peace order,” Germany’s Federal Foreign Office said on X.

Earlier this week, South Korea called for the immediate withdrawal of the North’s troops from Russia, warning that it may consider supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine in response and summoning Russia’s ambassador.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies