North Korea is ‘highly likely’ sending troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine, South Korea says

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North Korean soldiers could fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine, South Korea’s defence minister told the country’s parliament after media reports claimed Pyongyang had lost troops in the war.

Kim Yong-hyun claimed that North Korean troops could be sent to Ukraine under the mutual defence treaty signed during Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June.

Mr Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed a “comprehensive partnership agreement” that provided for mutual assistance “using all available means” in the event of aggression against either country. The treaty served to deepen military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

“As Russia and North Korea have signed a mutual treaty akin to a military alliance, the possibility of such a deployment is highly likely," the defence minister told lawmakers during a parliamentary audit session.

Mr Kim said reports of North Korean casualties on the Ukrainian frontlines were “also likely to be true”, reported South Korean state news agency Yonhap. “We assess that the occurrence of casualties among North Korean officers and soldiers in Ukraine is highly likely, considering various circumstances.”

The Kyiv Post and Interfax Ukraine had quoted unnamed intelligence sources as claiming that six North Korean soldiers were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike in the eastern Donetsk region. Three soldiers were also allegedly injured and were sent to a Moscow hospital for treatment.

The US and its allies backing Ukraine have accused North Korea of sending weapons and munitions to Russia for use in its war.

Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian chief of military intelligence, accused Pyongyang of “supplying crazy volumes of artillery shells that are critical for the Russian Federation”. This came after US secretary of state Antony Blinken told the United Nations Security Council that addressing North Korean arms deliveries to Russia should be the first priority.

Moscow and Pyongyang have denied such allegations.

American, Britain, Germany and other western backers have publicly supplied Ukraine with huge caches of weapons, including missiles and fighter jets, and billions of dollars in military funding to sustain its war effort.

The North Korean foreign ministry on Sunday blasted Nato for accusing the country of “fuelling” the war in Ukraine by allegedly sending missiles, shells and drones to Moscow. “If NATO continues to try hard to infringe upon the dignity, sovereignty, security and interests of the DPRK while persistently pursuing hostile policy towards it, Nato blindly following the US will be held wholly responsible for the tragic consequences to be entailed by it,” it said in a statement, according to the state news agency KCNA.