North Korea appears to have sent more troops
to aid Russia, Seoul says
By Hyung-Jin Kim,
The Associated Press
Feb 27, 2025,
02:25 PM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) —
South Korea’s spy agency said Thursday that North Korea appears to have
sent additional troops to Russia, after its soldiers deployed on
the Russian-Ukraine fronts suffered heavy casualties.
The National Intelligence
Service said in a brief statement it was trying to determine exactly how many
more troops North Korea has deployed to Russia.
The NIS also assessed that
North Korean troops were redeployed at fronts in Russia’s Kursk region in the
first week of February, following a reported temporary withdrawal from the
area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an address on Feb. 7,
confirmed a new Ukrainian offensive in Kursk and said North Korean
troops were fighting alongside Russian forces there.
North Korea has been
supplying a vast amount of conventional weapons to Russia, and last
fall it sent about 10,000-12,000 troops to Russia as well, according
to U.S., South Korean and Ukraine intelligence officials. North Korean
soldiers are highly disciplined and well trained, but observers say
they’ve become easy targets for drone and artillery attacks on Russian-Ukraine
battlefields due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the
terrain.
In January, the NIS said
about 300 North Korean soldiers had died and another 2,700 had been
injured. Zelenskyy earlier put the number of killed or wounded
North Koreans at 4,000, though U.S. estimates were lower at around 1,200.
Earlier Thursday, South
Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing unidentified sources, reported that an
additional 1,000-3,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to Kursk between
January and February.
South Korea, the U.S. and
their partners worry that Russia could reward North Korea by transferring
high-tech weapons technologies that can sharply enhance its nuclear
weapons program. North Korea is expected to receive economic and other assistance from
Russia as well.
During talks in Saudi
Arabia last week, Russia and the U.S. agreed to start working toward
ending the war and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. Ukrainian
officials weren’t present at the talks. That marked an extraordinary shift in
U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump and a clear departure
from U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.
Observers say North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un could send more troops to Russia to win further
Russian assistance before the war ends.
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