Officials say North Korea has sent troops to Russia. What would that mean for the war with Ukraine?

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — American and South Korean officials said Wednesday that there’s evidence North Korea has dispatched troops to Russia in a potential escalation of the nearly 3-year-old war with Ukraine.

If the soldiers’ goal is fighting with Russia in Ukraine, it would be the first time a third country puts boots on the ground in the war. Other countries on both sides of the divide have sent military aid, including weapons and training: Iran has supplied Russia with drones, and Western nations have provided Ukraine with modern weapons and financial and humanitarian assistance.

South Korea’s spy chief told lawmakers that 3,000 North Korean troops were being trained to use equipment including drones before being sent to fight in Ukraine. United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters during a visit to Rome that “we are seeing evidence that there are North Korean troops” who have gone to Russia.

“What exactly they’re doing — left to be seen,” Austin said. Neither Austin nor South Korean National Intelligence Service Director Cho Tae-yong provided details about how they knew about the North Korean troops, and many questions surround the impact of North Korean participation.

What do we know about the North Korean troops?

North Korean troops were arriving in Russia’s Kursk region as early as Wednesday to help Russian troops fight off a Ukrainian border incursion, Ukraine Military Intelligence Directorate head Kyrylo Budanov told the online military news outlet The War Zone on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters Monday that North Korean officers and technical personnel have already been spotted in Russian-occupied territories. He did not specify when.

“I believe they sent officers first to assess the situation before deploying troops,” Zelenskyy said. He has cautioned that the participation of a third country could escalate the conflict into a world war. Austin said that it would be a “very, very serious issue” if Pyongyang indeed did join the war on Russia’s side.

What is Ukraine doing?

Ukraine is preparing as though combating North Korea in its territory is inevitable.

An injection of 10,000 North Korean troops, which is what both Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence have claimed, “could significantly destabilize Ukraine’s defense there and greatly accelerate the advancement of Russian forces,” said Glib Voloskyi, an analyst from a Ukrainian think tank, Come Back Alive Initiatives Center.

Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” project, a hotline encouraging Russian soldiers to surrender, published a video in Korean on Wednesday calling for North Korean soldiers to give up.

“We call for the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army, who were sent to help the Putin regime. You should not die senselessly on someone else’s land. There is no need to repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home!”

How is the West reacting?

Zelenskyy told reporters Monday that the European Union and the U.S. have been cautious in publicly addressing North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia — describing their reactions as “very restrained.”

German and British officials also weighed in, with South Korea hinting that it could support Ukraine with military weapons in the event of North Korea’s confirmed involvement.

“We don’t even know whether we are talking about 1,500 or 12,000, or which kind of soldiers are coming to Russia and to fight where and against,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. “It’s a kind of escalation and it shows us a very important, a very important aspect. International conflicts are approaching very rapidly.”

United Kingdom Defense Secretary John Healey said there was “not just a concern about the potential for an escalation of conflict in Europe. There is an indivisible link with security concerns in the Indo-Pacific as well.”

Why does Russia need North Korea?

North Korea and Russia, both in separate confrontations with the West, have deepened their military cooperation in the past two years. In June, they signed a defense deal requiring both countries to provide military assistance if the other is attacked.

For analysts, the introduction of troops would be a sign that the war isn’t going as Russia planned.

“I think Ukraine is wearing down the Russian army as we talk. You don’t get thousands of soldiers from North Korea if your war is going well,” said Justin Crump, a former British tank commander who heads Sibylline, a strategic advisory firm. “You don’t require them.”

North Korea has already sent over 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles. Those missiles are being actively used against Ukrainian targets, officials in Kyiv say.

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Associated Press reporters Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov contributed. Danica Kirka contributed from London.