If the alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow continues to deepen, North Korea could deploy up to 100,000 troops to help Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to people familiar with the assessment by the Group of 20 nations.
The analysis is part of an emerging partnership between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions. He emphasized that such a move was not imminent and that military cooperation on this scale — if it did happen — would likely be in batches of troops rotating over time rather than in a single deployment.
Ukraine’s ambassador to South Korea made a similar assessment earlier this month. Dmitro Ponomarenko said in an interview with VOA that Kyiv expects up to 15,000 North Korean troops to be deployed to fight in Russia’s Kursk region and possibly the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine.
Spokesmen for South Korea’s defense ministry and presidential office did not respond to requests for comment.
Kim’s decision to send North Korean troops to join Russia’s fight against Ukraine has alarmed Kiev’s allies, who have warned it could be Europe’s worst since World War II. A major conflict threatens to escalate. He believes that closer cooperation between Putin and Kim could also affect the security balance in the Indo-Pacific region, where there is growing rivalry between China and the United States.
The issue will be raised by several allies at the G-20 summit in Brazil this week, including German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Bloomberg previously reported. Scholes told Putin in an unusual phone call on Friday that the deployment of North Korean troops was a “serious escalation” in the war against Ukraine.
According to German officials, Scholz will press the Chinese leader at their meeting in Rio on Tuesday to use his influence on Russia and North Korea to prevent further escalation of the war.
Officials said the North Korean deployment showed the war was becoming global and that Schulz and Xi would need to discuss this new dimension of the conflict.
Concerns were also raised by allies at the APEC meeting in Lima, Peru last week, another person said.
Xi has been the most supportive of Putin and Kim in recent years, and sees both leaders as partners in pushing back against the US-led global order. But his government has remained publicly silent on sending North Korean troops to Russia – a sign that the Chinese president may be unhappy with the arrangement.
Kim’s partnership with Putin threatens to increase economic pressure on China, just as Xi braces for a possible backlash from tariffs threatened by US President-elect Donald Trump when he returns to the White House. It also undermines Beijing’s argument that the US should not have a military alliance in the Indo-Pacific region.
China “does not allow conflict and turmoil in the Korean peninsula” and “will not sit idly by when its strategic security and core interests are threatened,” Xi told US President Joe Biden on Saturday. Duran said. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima.
North Korea has so far sent more than 10,000 troops to fight alongside Putin’s forces in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have seized part of the border since a surprise incursion in August. In return, Russia is providing money and helping North Korea build up its capabilities.
South Korea has said there is a “high chance” North Korea will demand the transfer of advanced technology from Russia – including technology related to tactical nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, spy satellites and ballistic missile submarines.
Along with manpower, North Korea has also sent millions of rounds of artillery and other weapons to Russia. Pyongyang has also supplied Moscow with long-range rockets and artillery systems, the Financial Times reported this week, citing Ukrainian intelligence.
Ukraine has been calling on allies for months to allow it to use Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia in order to attack Moscow, including the country’s energy infrastructure. Attacks can be countered.
