Brussels: North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine within “the next several weeks,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday.
Singh said some of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine.
“We are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk” region, she told reporters.
Singh said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has already publicly cautioned that should North Korea’s soldiers be used on the battlefield, they would be considered belligerents and legitimate targets but that their use would have serious implications for security in the Indo-Pacific as well.
NATO said some of the North Korean troops have already been deployed in Russia’s Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
AP