NATO chief says North Korean troops are in Russia’s Kursk region

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed on Monday that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and that military units have been deployed to its Kursk border region.

In response, Kyiv urged its allies to supply it with more weapons and allow deep strikes into Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte told reporters after NATO officials and diplomats were briefed by a South Korean delegation.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol also sounded the alarm during telephone calls with Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Yoon told von der Leyen the deployment of North Korean troops to the front lines of the Ukraine war may come sooner than expected, his office said.

He told Rutte that Seoul would continue to consult closely with NATO, and that he hoped the Western military alliance would redouble its efforts to monitor and block “illegal exchanges” between Russia and North Korea.

Ukrainian military intelligence said on Thursday that the first North Korean units had already been recorded in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been operating since staging a major incursion in August. 

Rutte said the North Korean deployment represented “a significant escalation” of Pyongyang’s involvement in “Russia’s illegal war” in Ukraine, a breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions and a “dangerous expansion” of the conflict.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Kyiv had been warning about the deployment for weeks, yet there was no strong response from allies. 

“Now NATO Secretary General confirmed this. The bottom line: listen to Ukraine. The solution: lift restrictions on our long-range strikes against Russia now,” he said on X. 

The Kremlin had initially dismissed reports about a North Korean deployment as “fake news”. Last Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny that North Korean troops were in Russia and said it was Moscow’s business how to implement a partnership treaty with Pyongyang.

A North Korean foreign ministry official did not confirm media reports about a troop deployment to Russia but said if Pyongyang had taken such action, he believed it would be in line with international norms.

The deployment of North Korean troops was a sign of “growing desperation” on the part of Putin, Rutte said. 

“Over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Putin’s war and he is unable to sustain his assault on Ukraine without foreign support,” Rutte said.

The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said sanctions alone would not be a sufficient response to North Korean involvement. 

He added that Kyiv needs “weapons and a clear plan to prevent North Korea’s expanded involvement”.  

“The enemy understands strength. Our allies have this strength,” Yermak said on X. 

(Reporting by Andrew Gray in Brussels, additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk and Joyce lee in Seoul; editing by Bart Meijer, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Mark Heinrich, Angus MacSwan, Timothy Heritage and William Maclean)