Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

North Korean troops deployed in Russia’s Kursk region are suffering heavy losses and being left unprotected by the Russian forces they are fighting alongside, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday (December 27, 2024).

Mr. Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said Russian troops were sending the North Koreans into battle with minimal protection and that North Koreans were taking extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner.

“Their losses are significant, very significant. We see that neither the Russian military nor their North Korean overseers have any interest in ensuring the survival of these North Koreans,” he said.

“Everything is set up so that it is impossible for us to capture them. There are instances in which they are executed by their own forces. Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection.”

Ukrainian and Western intelligence reports say there are about 12,000 North Korean troops in Kursk, a Russian region on the border where Ukrainian forces are holding chunks of territory after staging an incursion in August.

Earlier this week, Mr. Zelenskiy said more than 3,000 North Koreans had been killed or wounded.

He said Ukrainian forces had managed to take a few North Korean soldiers prisoner “but they were severely wounded and it was not possible to save their lives”.

Mr. Zelenskiy said the Korean people “should not be losing their lives in battles in Europe. This is something that Korea’s neighbours, including China, can influence.”

“If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not expand, it needs to exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang.”

More than 1,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in Russia’s war with Ukraine, South Korea said Monday (December 23, 2024), while Kyiv put the total at over 3,000.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce the Russian military, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that “we assess that North Korean troops who have recently engaged in combat with Ukrainian forces have suffered around 1,100 casualties,” citing “various sources of information and intelligence”.

It gave its figure following a report by Seoul’s spy agency to MPs last week, which said at least 100 North Korean soldiers had been killed since entering combat in December.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later gave a far higher estimate, writing on X that “according to preliminary data, the number of North Korean soldiers killed and wounded in the Kursk region has already exceeded 3,000”.

Zelensky warned of “risks of North Korea sending additional troops and military equipment”.

Pyongyang is reportedly “preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers” to aid Russia’s war effort, the JCS said.

Seoul said its intelligence also suggests that the nuclear-armed North is “producing and providing self-destructible drones” to Russia to further assist Moscow in its fight against Ukraine.

The North was also supplying “240mm rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery” for the Russian army, the JCS said.

Seoul’s military noted that North Korea was aiming to modernise its conventional warfare capabilities based on combat experience in the Russia-Ukraine war.

“This could lead to an increase in the North’s military threat toward us,” it said.

The latest findings align with a report by Seoul’s National Intelligence Service, which informed lawmakers that “Russia might offer reciprocal benefits” for North Korea’s military contributions, including “modernising North Korea’s conventional weaponry”.

‘Destabilisation risk’

North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A landmark defence pact between Pyongyang and Moscow, signed in June, came into force this month.

Experts say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is keen to acquire advanced technology from Russia and battle experience for his troops.

Pyongyang lashed out on Thursday at what it called “reckless provocation” by the United States and its allies for a joint statement criticising North Korea’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, including the deployment of troops.

Zelensky warned Monday that growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang caused a proportionately increased “risk of destabilisation around the Korean Peninsula”.

South Korea and Ukraine announced last month that they would deepen security cooperation in response to the “threat” posed by the deployment of North Korean troops, but there was no mention of potential arms shipments from Seoul to Kyiv.

South Korea’s suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol said in November that Seoul was “not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons” to Ukraine, which would mark a significant shift in its long-standing policy barring the sale of weapons to countries in active conflict.

North Korea’s military was also seen constructing a new fence stretching 40 kilometres (25 miles) along the border with the South, testing electric barbed-wire fences with what appeared to be goats.

A photo provided by the JCS shows a North Korean soldier holding what appears to be a goat in front of barbed-wire fences.

The North’s border security reinforcement had been under way “for eight months with as many as 10,000 soldiers mobilised”, a military official told reporters.

The stepped-up security measures aim to “prevent defections by North Korean civilians and soldiers southward”, the JCS said in the report.

The North has also launched around 7,000 trash-carrying balloons into the South on 32 occasions since May, Seoul’s military said.

Activist groups in South Korea have long sent propaganda northwards, typically carried by balloons, including leaflets, US dollar bills and sometimes USB drives containing K-pop or K-dramas, which are banned in the tightly controlled North.

Pyongyang rails at such activity and has said its trash-carrying balloon offensive is in retaliation for the activists’ propaganda efforts.

While Pyongyang has refrained from launching such balloons since November 29, “indications of their readiness for a surprise launch at multiple sites” have been observed, Seoul’s military said.

File picture of North Korean soldiers marching for the 70th anniversary of the nation’s founding day in Pyongyang, North Korea
| Photo Credit: AP

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and likely fight against Ukraine within “the next several weeks,” the U.S. Pentagon said Monday (October 28, 2024), in a move that Western leaders say will intensify the almost three-year war and jolt relations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.

Earlier Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte NATO confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.

Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army. It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power dynamics. He sought to build a counterbalance to Western influence with a summit of BRICS countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week. He has sought direct help for the war from Iran, which has supplied drones, and North Korea, which has shipped large amounts of ammunition, according to Western governments.

Mr. Rutte told reporters in Brussels that the North Korean deployment represents “a significant escalation” in Pyongyang’s involvement in the conflict and “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”

U.S. President Joe Biden also called the deployment “dangerous. Very dangerous.”

U.S. officials to meet South Korean counterparts

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with their South Korean counterparts later this week in Washington.

Ms. Singh said Mr. Austin and Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun will discuss the deployment of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine. There will be no limitations on the use of U.S.-provided weapons on those forces, Singh said.

“If we see DPRK troops moving in towards the front lines, they are co-belligerents in the war,” Ms. Singh said, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea. “This is a calculation that North Korea has to make.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shrugged off Mr. Rutte’s comments and noted that Pyongyang and Moscow signed a joint security pact last June. He stopped short of confirming North Korean soldiers were in Russia.

Mr. Lavrov claimed that Western military instructors long have been covertly deployed to Ukraine to help its military use long-range weapons provided by Western partners.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

North Korea’s top diplomat on Sunday (October 20, 2024) criticised a new sanctions monitoring team led by the United States as “unlawful and illegitimate”, warning countries involved in the entity would face a “dear price”.

Also Read: What’s behind the Russia-North Korea security pact? | Explained

The 11-member team was named earlier this month after Russia vetoed the renewal of a panel of U.N. experts monitoring international sanctions on North Korea, imposed for its banned nuclear and weapons programmes.

Since the Russian veto, South Korea and its allies have worked to apply different methods to monitor sanctions, leading to the formation of the new group — which includes the United States and Japan.

Such a monitoring mechanism is “utterly unlawful and illegitimate”, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Sunday.

Also Read: North Korea says its revised constitution defines South Korea as ’hostile State’ for first time

“Its existence itself constitutes a denial of the U.N. Charter,” he said.

The criticism comes on the heels of a report by the South’s spy agency that North Korea had sent a “large-scale” troop deployment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with 1,500 special forces already training in Russia.

Seoul also claims that Pyongyang has been shipping arms to Moscow to use against Kyiv.

Choe did not address the alledged deployment in the Sunday statement, while Pyongyang has previously denied any sanctions-busting weapons trade with Russia.

Cape Verde:

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mutual defence agreement with North Korea has the potential to create friction with China, which has long been the reclusive state’s main ally, the top U.S. military officer said on Sunday.

“We’ve got someone else who’s kind of nudging in now, so that may drive a little bit more friction between (China) and Russia,” Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during an overseas trip.

“So it’ll be interesting to see how these three countries — how this plays out.”

Analysts said the pact, signed on Wednesday, could undercut Beijing’s leverage over its two neighbors and any heightened instability could be negative for China’s global economic and strategic ambitions.

On Thursday, Putin said Russia might supply weapons to North Korea in what he suggested would be a mirror response to the Western arming of Ukraine.

Brown acknowledged U.S. concern about the deal.

But he also tempered those remarks by noting apparent limitations to the accord and expressing doubt Moscow would give North Korea “everything” it wanted.

U.S. officials have said they believe North Korea is keen to acquire fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment or materials, and other advanced technologies from Russia.

“The feedback I have on the agreement — it was a broad agreement that’s not overly binding, which gives you an indication (that) they want to work together but they don’t want to get their hands tied,” Brown said.

The treaty signed by Putin and Kim on Wednesday commits each side to provide immediate military assistance to the other in the event of armed aggression against either one of them.

Putin has said Moscow expected that its cooperation with North Korea would serve as a deterrent to the West, but that there was no need to use North Korean soldiers for the war in Ukraine.

The United States and Ukraine say North Korea has already provided Russia with significant quantities of artillery shells and ballistic missiles, which Moscow and Pyongyang deny.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A TV screen shows an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin during a news program, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on June 19, 2024. North Korean leader Kim promised full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine before beginning a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Putin in Pyongyang on Wednesday, in a bid to expand their economic and military cooperation and show a united front against Washington.
| Photo Credit: AP

South Korea said on June 20 that it would consider sending arms to Ukraine, a major policy change suggested after Russia and North Korea rattled the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other’s defense in the event of war.

The comments from a senior presidential official came hours after North Korea’s state media released the details of the agreement, which observers said could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. It comes at a time when Russia faces growing isolation over its war in Ukraine and both countries face escalating standoffs with the West.

According to the text of the deal published by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, if either country gets invaded and is pushed into a state of war, the other must deploy “all means at its disposal without delay” to provide “military and other assistance.” But the agreement also says that such actions must be in accordance with the laws of both countries and Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which recognizes a U.N. member state’s right to self-defense.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the pact at a summit on June 19 in Pyongyang. Both described it as a major upgrade of bilateral relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties.

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement condemning the agreement, calling it a threat to the South’s security and a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and warned that it would have negative consequences on Seoul’s relations with Moscow.

“It’s absurd that two parties with a history of launching wars of invasion — the Korean War and the war in Ukraine — are now vowing mutual military cooperation on the premise of a preemptive attack by the international community that will never happen,” Mr. Yoon’s office said.

Mr. Yoon’s national security adviser, Chang Ho-jin, said Seoul would reconsider the issue of providing arms to Ukraine to help the country fight off Russia’s invasion.

South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, has provided humanitarian aid and other support to Ukraine while joining U.S.-led economic sanctions against Moscow. But it has not directly provided arms to Kyiv, citing a longstanding policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflict.

The summit between Kim and Putin came as the U.S. and its allies expressed growing concern over a possible arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions for its war in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

Following their summit, Mr. Kim said the two countries had a “fiery friendship,” and that the deal was their “strongest-ever treaty,” putting the relationship at the level of an alliance. He vowed full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Mr. Putin called it a “breakthrough document” reflecting shared desires to move relations to a higher level.

North Korea and the former Soviet Union signed a treaty in 1961, which experts say necessitated Moscow’s military intervention if the North came under attack. The deal was discarded after the collapse of the USSR, replaced by one in 2000 that offered weaker security assurances.

There’s ongoing debate on how strong of a security commitment the deal entails. While some analysts see the agreement as a full restoration of the countries’ Cold War-era alliance, others say the deal seems more symbolic than substantial.

Ankit Panda, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the text appeared to be carefully worded as to not imply automatic military invention.

But “the big picture here is that both sides are willing to put down on paper, and show the world, just how widely they intend to expand the scope of their cooperation,” he said.

The deal was made as Mr. Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years, a trip that showcased their personal and geopolitical ties with Kim hugging Putin twice at the airport, their motorcade rolling past giant Russian flags and Putin portraits, and a welcoming ceremony at Pyongyang’s main square attended by what appeared to be tens of thousands of spectators.

According to KCNA, the agreement also states that Pyongyang and Moscow must not enter into agreements with third parties if they infringe on the “core interests” of any of them and must not participate in actions that threaten those interests.

KCNA said the agreement requires the countries to take steps to prepare joint measures for the purpose of strengthening their defense capabilities to prevent war and protect regional and global peace and security. The agency didn’t specify what those steps are, or whether they would include combined military training and other cooperation.

The agreement also calls for the countries to actively cooperate in efforts to establish a “just and multipolar new world order,” KCNA said, underscoring how the countries are aligning in face of their separate confrontations with the United States.

How the pact affects Russia’s relations with the South is a key development to watch, said Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and director of the North Korea-focused 38 North website.

“Seoul had already signed onto sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, souring its relations with Moscow. Now with any ambiguity of Russia’s partnership with North Korea removed, how will Seoul respond?” she said. “Is there a point where it decides to cut or suspend diplomatic ties with Russia or expel its ambassador? And have we reached it?”

Mr. Kim in recent months has made Russia his priority as he pushes a foreign policy aimed at expanding relations with countries confronting Washington, embracing the idea of a “new Cold War” and trying to display a united front in Putin’s broader conflicts with the West.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years, with the pace of both Mr. Kim’s weapons tests and combined military exercises involving the U.S., South Korea and Japan intensifying in a tit-for-tat cycle.

The Koreas also have engaged in Cold War-style psychological warfare that involved North Korea dropping tons of trash on the South with balloons, and the South broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda with its loudspeakers.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un walk during a farewell ceremony upon Mr. Putin’s departure at an airport in Pyongyang, North Korea June 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

A new agreement between Russia and North Korea reached by their leaders requires the countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event of war, North Korean state media said.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday reported the language of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement reached by its leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang on Wednesday. The agency said Article 4 of the agreement states that if one of the countries gets invaded and is pushed into a state of war, the other must deploy “all means at its disposal without delay” to provide “military and other assistance”.

The deal could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. Both Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin described it as a major upgrade of their relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties.

The summit came as the U.S. and its allies expressed growing concerns over a possible arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions for its war in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by Mr. Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile programme.

Following their summit, Mr. Kim said the two countries had a “fiery friendship”, and that the deal was their “strongest-ever treaty”, putting the relationship at the level of an alliance. He vowed full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Mr. Putin called it a “breakthrough document” reflecting shared desires to move relations to a higher level.

North Korea and the former Soviet Union signed a treaty in 1961, which experts say necessitated Moscow’s military intervention if the North came under attack. The deal was discarded after the collapse of the USSR, replaced by one in 2000 that offered weaker security assurances.

South Korean officials said they were still interpreting the results of the summit, including what Russia’s response might be if the North comes under attack, and whether the new deal promises a similar level of protection with the 1961 treaty. South Korean officials didn’t immediately comment on the North Korean report about the details of the deal.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years, with the pace of both Kim’s weapons tests and combined military exercises involving the US, South Korea and Japan intensifying in a tit-for-tat cycle.

The Koreas also have engaged in Cold War-style psychological warfare that involved North Korea dropping tons of trash on the South with balloons, and the South broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda with its loudspeakers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took turns to drive each other around in a Russian-built Aurus limousine on Wednesday after the Kremlin said Putin had gifted one of the luxury vehicles to Kim.

In a carefully staged public relations opportunity held amid tight security, the two leaders used the moment to show how close their working relationship has become during what was a pomp-filled visit to Pyongyang by Putin, his first in nearly a quarter of a century.

Their jaunt took place after the two leaders had signed a deal that included a mutual defence pledge, one of Russia’s most significant moves in Asia for years that Kim said amounted to an “alliance”.

Video released by Russian state TV showed Putin jumping behind the wheel of the black armoured Aurus, which is his official presidential car back in Russia, with Kim getting in the passenger seat.

The car is then shown driving on a road which weaves its way through a carefully manicured park area before coming to a halt. A Korean man in a suit wearing white gloves is seen opening the door for Kim before rushing round to hold Putin’s door.

Putin and Kim are then shown walking side by side and chatting on a path in a wooded area with two men, presumably translators, walking behind them.

Kim, who is believed to be a keen automobile enthusiast, is then shown driving Putin back.

One of Putin’s aides said earlier on Wednesday that the Russian leader had presented Kim with a Russian-built Aurus limousine as a gift.

Putin gave Kim a first Aurus limousine in February this year, both countries said at the time, meaning he now has at least two of the vehicles.

The Aurus Senat, retro-styled after the Soviet-era ZIL limousine, is the official Russian presidential car and Putin rode in one to his most recent Kremlin inauguration ceremony in May.

When Kim visited eastern Russia in September last year, Putin showed him one of the vehicles. Kim sat beside Putin in the car and appeared to enjoy it.

Kim has a large collection of luxury foreign vehicles which have probably been smuggled in, as U.N. Security Council resolutions ban the export of luxury goods to North Korea.

He has been spotted in a Maybach limousine, several Mercedes, a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a Lexus sports utility vehicle.

Aurus Motors began making its cars in Russia’s Tatarstan region, around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Moscow, in 2021.

A senior Russian official said last month that Russia would start making Aurus cars at a former Toyota factory in St. Petersburg this year.

Russia is looking for ways to use car factories left idle after some global automakers withdrew from the Russian market following Putin’s decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Western sanctions imposed on Russia since have helped sharply push up prices for new cars and seen Chinese manufacturers expand their market share as some mass market Russian carmakers have struggled.

According to Russian analytical agency Autostat, 40 Aurus-branded cars have been sold in Russia so far this year.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Moscow:

A strategic partnership pact signed by the leaders of Russia and North Korea on Wednesday includes a mutual defence clause under which each country agrees to help the other repel external aggression, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“The comprehensive partnership agreement signed today provides, among other things, for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement,” Putin was quoted as saying by state news agency TASS.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Britain said on May 17 it was imposing new sanctions along with its international partners that target Russian and North Korean attempts to contravene or circumvent UN sanctions with its “arms for oil” trade.

“The sanctions highlight the joint malign efforts of Russia and the DPRK to circumvent sanctions on petroleum products, which help facilitate the DPRK’s unlawful military programmes,” the government said in a statement.