Ukraine’s military intelligence service said on Thursday that the first North Korean units trained in Russia had been deployed in the Kursk region, a Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August.
The Kremlin has previously dismissed reports about the North’s troop deployment as “fake news”. But Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that it was Moscow’s business how to implement a partnership treaty with Pyongyang.
Putin did not deny that North Korean troops were currently in Russia.
“The first units of the military from the DPRK, which were trained at the eastern Russian training grounds, have already arrived in the combat zone of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In particular, on October 23, 2024, their presence was recorded in the Kursk region,” the Ukrainian intelligence agency said in a statement.
It said a total of around 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were already in Russia, and training was taking place on five military bases.
Russian Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was appointed responsible for overseeing the training of North Korean military, the agency said.
Ukraine has earlier called on its allies to respond firmly to North Korean involvement into war by imposing new sanctions and further isolating Pyongyang.
On Wednesday, the U.S. said it had seen evidence that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for possible deployment in Ukraine.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said the North had shipped 3,000 troops, including special forces, to Russia’s Far East for training and acclimatising at military bases there, probably to be deployed for combat in the war.
Moscow and Pyongyang ties grew deeper after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and they signed a comprehensive strategic partnership deal in June. Putin has said the treaty included a mutual assistance clause for each side to help the other repel external aggression.
North Korea has supplied ballistic missiles and ammunition rounds to Russia for its war in Ukraine, Kyiv and its Western allies say. Pyongyang has denied this.
Asked by a reporter about satellite imagery showing North Korean troop movements, Putin said: “Images are a serious thing. If there are images, then they reflect something.”
But he said NATO officers and instructors were directly involved in the Ukraine war and it was the West that had escalated the Ukraine crisis. “We know who is present there, from which European NATO countries, and how they carry out this work,” Putin said.
“There is article 4. (of the Russian partnership deal with North Korea, which deals with mutual defence). We have never doubted in the least that the North Korean leadership takes our agreements seriously. But what we do within the framework of this article is our business,” he added.
A North Korean representative to the United Nations in New York said the U.S. and South Korean assertions about sending troops to Russia were “groundless rumors”.
TRUMP AND U.S. ELECTION
Asked about a Wall Street Journal report that cited Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as saying he had threatened Putin against going after Ukraine on an unspecified date in the past. Putin said he did not recall such a threat.
“You can threaten anyone. (But) it is pointless to threaten Russia because it simply invigorates us,” Putin said. “But I do not recall such a conversation with Mr. Trump.”
The Journal quoted Trump as saying that he had warned Putin that if he went after Ukraine, “‘I am going to hit you so hard, you’re not even going to believe it. I’m going to hit you right in the middle of fricking Moscow.'”
Putin said it was wise not to take such statements seriously given the heat of the presidential election campaign but said that he felt Trump was sincere about his desire to end the war in Ukraine.
(With Inputs from Reuters)
