North Korea Has Sent More Troops to Ukraine, Says South Korea

Flags of Russia and North Korea attached to a car during a ceremony welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin at an airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2024. Sputnik/Vladimir Smirnov/Pool via REUTERS

North Korea has sent reinforcements to fight alongside Russian troops against Ukraine, South Korea’s intelligence service said Thursday.

In a statement carried by South Korean media, the country’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it was still trying to determine exactly how many troops North Korea had sent to Russia in the latest deployment.

In December, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said North Korea had suffered “very significant” losses in the Kursk region, where they were helping Russian forces seeking to push Ukrainian troops out of Russia after an incursion was mounted last summer.

Citing preliminary data, he said at the time more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed and wounded.

According to the Pentagon, 10,000 troops were initially deployed last year in the Kursk region to fight the Ukrainians.

They include the Storm Corps, an elite special forces unit.

On Thursday, the NIS said North Korean troops were redeployed on the frontline in Russia’s Kursk region in the first week of February, following a temporary withdrawal.

Last month Ukraine said it had captured two soldiers from North Korea, which is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

In a statement on Jan. 11, Ukraine’s SBU intelligence and security service said the successful capture mission took place two days earlier and said the prisoners of war had provided, “indisputable evidence of the DPRK’s participation in Russia’s war against our country.”

Last month the NIS said about 300 North Korean soldiers had been killed, and another 2,700 were injured.

On Feb. 7, Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian forces were mounting a fresh offensive in the Kursk region, and said the enemy included North Korean troops.

North Korea Supplies Shells

North Korea has also supplied large quantities of artillery shells to Russia, helping them to keep up regular bombardment of the Ukrainian lines, especially in the Donbas region, where the Russians are making a steady, slow advance.

In November, Russia’s defense minister Andrei Belousov flew to Pyongyang for talks with North Korean military and political leaders.

The Russian news agency TASS said Belousov had talks with North Korea’s defense minister No Kwang Chol, and quoted Belousov as saying military cooperation between Russia and North Korea was actively growing.

North Korea has not formally acknowledged its military support for Russia.

The Pentagon and the South Korean government believe Russia could reward North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un by transferring high-tech weapons technologies, which would enhance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

North Korea is already known to be receiving oil and gas supplies from Russia, in breach of United Nations sanctions.

Russia is also estimated to have sent a million barrels of oil to North Korea, in breach of U.N. sanctions, since March 2024, according to satellite imagery analysis by Open Source, a non-profit based in Britain.

Much of the oil and other supplies are delivered by Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.

Efforts To End Conflict

Last week Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the United States launched the first effort to bring the conflict in Ukraine to an end.

The conflict began in Feb. 2022 when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, angered at Kyiv’s insistence on joining NATO.

Ukrainian officials were not present at the initial U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, Zelenskyy was expected in Washington on Friday to sign an economic deal focused on Ukraine’s rare earths and critical minerals.

But on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said he had not yet received security guarantees which he believed were critical to the deal.

Ukraine needs to know where the United States stands on its continued military support, Zelenskyy said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.