Official condemnation from Ukraine’s allies took three weeks to arrive. Friday, November 8, the North Atlantic Council, the political decision-making body within NATO, “firmly condemned” the commitment of North Korean soldiers to Russia, now demonstrated in the Russian Kursk region, partially occupied by Ukraine since this summer.
“The deployment of thousands of combatants [de Corée du Nord] constitutes a dangerous intensification of the already substantial support provided by this country to the war of aggression that Russia is waging, completely illegally, against Ukraine.denounced the Atlantic Alliance. A press release exceptionally signed by its partners from Asia and Oceania, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, as well as Ukraine.
A collective condemnation that comes two days after the publication on Wednesday of an unusually dramatic column by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the news site. political. “The presence of North Korean troops in Europe marks a turning point […] Are we on the brink of something much darker than the devastation that has already been inflicted on the Ukrainian people? »asked the new representative of the Atlantic Alliance, who took office on 1Ahem October.
Trapped by the American electoral context
Despite the unprecedented escalation represented by the deployment of North Korean soldiers, the allies have not publicly taken any retaliatory measures, at this stage. To the point that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was upset about it on several occasions. “The reaction today is nothing, zero”He stated in particular on October 31, during an interview with the South Korean television channel KBS.
“We are trapped by the American electoral context. “If this had happened in the spring, we would certainly have reacted differently.”laments a Western diplomatic source who believes that this new threshold could relaunch the debate on the use of long-range Western weapons to attack targets on Russian territory. “We have not yet sufficiently explored the entire dimension” of what is happening, adds the same interlocutor.
Beyond the American political context, one of the reasons given to justify this Western hesitation is the difficulty of the allies in corroborating their information about the presence of these North Korean soldiers. The gradual transfer to the Russian Kursk region of these 12,000 soldiers affiliated with the Kim Jong-un regime, first revealed by South Korean intelligence services on October 19, has not been confirmed by the United States as on October 23. “South Koreans taught Americans things”confirms a source close to the matter. “Efforts to hide the origin of troops make assessments difficult” We also headed towards the headquarters of the Alliance, in Brussels.
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