North Korea sending more troops to Russia, South Korea says

North Korea appears to have sent more troops to Russia despite its soldiers suffering heavy casualties fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, South Korea’s main spy agency said Thursday.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it was trying to figure out how many additional troops North Korea deployed to Russia, according to a brief statement.

The South Korean agency also assessed that earlier this month North Korean troops were redeployed at fronts in Russia’s Kursk region after a reported temporary withdrawal from the region.

The U.S. first revealed in October that Pyongyang sent around 10,000 troops to train in Russia and eventually be utilized on the battlefield.

The deployment marked a new milestone in North Korean support for Russia's war, as Pyongyang was already supplying Moscow with large shipments of ammunition, missiles and other weapons since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The troops were reportedly trained at military bases inside Russia before being sent to the Kursk region to fight alongside Kremlin forces attempting to regain territory ceded to Ukraine.

But the North Korean soldiers appeared to fare badly in the fight, with the White House in late December saying they were getting injured at a rapid rate: more than 1,000 killed or wounded in just one week.

The losses forced the North Korean troops to pull back from the front lines in January, Ukrainian and U.S. officials said at the time.

But earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Pyongyang’s troops were back on the front lines, an assessment backed up by the NIS.

“Following a month-long lull, North Korean troops were placed back in the frontline region of Kursk starting in the first week of February,” the spy agency said Thursday.

The announcement follows a report in South Korean newspaper JoongAng that said North Korea has sent up to 3,000 additional troops since January by ship and military cargo planes, as reported by The Associated Press.

Officials and experts have speculated that in exchange for the soldiers, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is hoping to gain Russian technology to upgrade his nuclear weapons program, as well as a valuable international ally for the isolated nation.

President Trump, who has vowed to end the war in Ukraine, once sought a diplomatic relationship with North Korea, but such talks collapsed during his first presidency. Since taking office for his second term, Trump has hinted at reopening the door to diplomacy with Kim.

Topics

North Korea Is Sending More Troops to Russia, South Korea’s Spy Agency Says

The fresh deployment comes after North Korea suffered heavy casualties on the front lines in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the South’s spy agency says.
The New York Times - 5h
North Korea has sent more troops to Russia, South Korean media report

North Korea has deployed additional troops to Russia, South Korean media reported, citing the country’s intelligence agency.
NBC News - 18h
North Korea appears to have sent more troops to Russia to back Ukraine war: Seoul

South Korea’s spy agency says North Korea appears to have sent additional troops to Russia, after its soldiers deployed on the Russian-Ukraine fronts suffered heavy casualties
ABC News - 22h
Russia is relying so heavily on North Korea that it's getting 50% of its ammo from Pyongyang, Ukraine's spy chief says

Yahoo News - 2d
North Korea says it performed cruise missile tests

North Korea says it has test-fired strategic cruise missiles to demonstrate its nuclear counter-attack capability
ABC News - 3h
Under Trump, America’s New Friends: Russia, North Korea and Belarus

When it comes to the war in Ukraine, President Trump finds common cause with the world’s outlier states and stands against traditional U.S. allies like Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and ...
The New York Times - 2d
North Korea was responsible for $1.5 billion ByBit hack, FBI says

The FBI said on Wednesday that North Korea was responsible for the theft of approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange ByBit.
NBC News - 1d
North Korea behind $1.5bn hack of crypto exchange ByBit, says FBI

The US agency said it refers to this specific North Korean malicious cyber activity as ‘TraderTraitor’. North Korea was behind the theft of approximately $1.5bn in virtual assets from a ...
The Guardian - 1d
North Koreans are back to fighting alongside Russia, South Korean intelligence says

Yahoo News - 17h