10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, inching closer to fight in Ukraine: Pentagon

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to train in Russia with the expectation they’ll be sent to fight in Ukraine within “the next several weeks,” the Pentagon said Monday.

“We believe that the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)] has sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,” deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.

Singh said a portion of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and U.S. officials believe they are heading to the Kursk border region in Russia, where Ukrainian troops this summer launched an incursion that Kremlin forces have struggled to push back.

“It is likely that they are moving in that direction towards Kursk. But I don't have more details just yet,” Singh said of the North Koreans.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte earlier Monday confirmed some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region — calling it a “dangerous expansion” of the conflict — but he did not say how many troops were there.

Speaking after South Korean intelligence and military officials visited NATO headquarters in Brussels, Rutte said Pyongyang’s shipment of ammunition and ballistic missiles to Russia is “fueling a major conflict in the heart of Europe.” He also called the deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea “a threat to both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security.”

The new U.S. estimate of 10,000 troops comes after Washington last week confirmed at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers were undergoing military training at multiple sites in Russia, a disclosure that followed similar intelligence reports from Kyiv and Seoul.

And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said Moscow plans to deploy North Koreans on the battlefield within days.

The deployment means North Korean troops soon could be on the battlefield against Ukrainian forces, adding to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. The development is also sure to exacerbate tensions with the West, in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region.

Singh said should North Korean troops show up on the front lines, there will be no limitations on the use of U.S.-provided weapons on those forces.

“If we see DPRK troops moving in and towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” Singh said. “This is a calculation that North Korea has to make.”

The topic is all but certain to come up Wednesday when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set to meet with his South Korean counterpart at the Pentagon. That is followed by Thursday talks at the State Department between Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their South Korean equivalents.

“I think you can expect this to be a topic of discussion with the secretary and his counterparts,” Singh said. “This has broad interagency implications, not just for the United States, but for, as I mentioned, Europe and the Indo-Pacific.”

Russian leaders, meanwhile, have not directly confirmed or denied the presence of the North Koreans within their borders, but have hinted at it by pointing to Moscow and Pyongyang’s new security treaty, signed in June.

And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday pushed back at Western condemnations over the two countries’ cooperation, calling it an “attempt to retroactively justify” military support to Ukraine.