SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has sent troops to Russia, the United States said Wednesday, its first public confirmation of a move that has rattled Western allies and could mark a major escalation of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
“There is evidence of DPRK troops in Russia,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Rome, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“What exactly they’re doing is left to be seen,” Austin said, adding, “We’re trying to gain better fidelity on it.” It’s a “serious issue,” he said, if North Korea’s “intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf.”
His comments came after South Korea and Ukraine sounded the alarm in recent days, sharing intelligence and voicing dissatisfaction with what they see as a lack of urgency in the response from the U.S. and other Western countries.
The reclusive nature of the Kremlin and Kim Jong Un’s regime mean that observers have pored over social media video and satellite images in search of confirmation that Russia is deploying the troops to Ukraine, in what would be a dramatic new step in the burgeoning alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow.
South Korean lawmakers said Wednesday that North Korea had sent 3,000 troops to Russia out of a promised 10,000 to be deployed by December. That is twice the 1,500 that the South Korean intelligence agency had reported being sent last week.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that two units of North Korean troops, with as many as 6,000 people each, were being trained for deployment.
“This is a challenge, but we know how to respond to this challenge. It is important that partners do not hide from this challenge as well,” he said in his nightly video address.
Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, told the U.S. publication The War Zone that North Korean troops could arrive as early as Wednesday in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion in August.
South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday to demand the withdrawal of the North Korean soldiers and “related cooperation.” The U.S. treaty ally, which has so far provided only nonlethal aid to Ukraine, now says it is considering providing defensive weapons and even offensive ones in response.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Tuesday that it would “mark a dangerous and highly concerning development” and that the U.S. was consulting with its allies and partners “on the implications of such a dramatic move.”
Austin had not mentioned the reports during his Monday visit to Kyiv, where he met with Zelenskyy and announced $400 million in new military aid.
The U.S. and others say Pyongyang is already supplying Moscow with badly needed munitions, including millions of artillery shells, in exchange for key military technology that could be used to strengthen Kim’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Both Russia and North Korea deny any transfer of arms.