North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, U.S. confirms

North Korea’s envoy to the U.N. dismissed the accusations as “groundless rumors” on Monday. The Kremlin says its cooperation with North Korea is not directed against anyone else. 

Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov did not directly answer questions about whether North Korean troops were fighting for Russia, saying there was “conflicting information.”

“South Korea says one thing, then the Pentagon says they have no confirmation of such statements,” he told reporters on Monday, before Austin’s comments.

Others have also questioned the reports of North Koreans in Ukraine, with Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, warning that Russia could be using them for propaganda purposes.

“There are no North Korean soldiers, yet,” his office said.

North Korea has the world’s fourth-largest military with around 1.2 million military personnel, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank. The deployment in Ukraine, if confirmed, would mark the North Korean military’s first direct involvement in a conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Still, their addition would be “incremental,” Ledwidge said, with a few thousand troops unlikely to make much difference at all, let alone win the war for Russia. 

It’s more of a political statement to signal the deepening alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang, he said, and would provide a training ground for inexperienced North Korean soldiers, adding to Seoul’s worries.

“North Korea gets to bring back home some combat experience,” he said.

The language barrier between Korean-speaking and Russian-speaking soldiers would be another obstacle.

“They’re not going to break up the Koreans and stuff them into Russian units,” O’Brien said. “It would be a disaster.” 

“What we’ll see is Korean units acting together as Korean formations. The Korean ones will be in liaison with the Russians, and they will get their orders back and forth,” he said.  

The first troops could likely be a “trial run,” he said. “And if it works, well, my guess is they’ll be back.”

Stella Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea, and Mithil Aggarwal reported from New Delhi.