The war in Ukraine is preparing to cross a new threshold with the direct participation of a third country, North Korea, raising fears of an unprecedented escalation since the Russian invasion in February 2022, the national intelligence service of the South Korea (NIS). October 18 that Pyongyang had decided to send “important troops” fight alongside Russia in Ukraine. A total of 12,000 North Korean soldiers from four brigades, including special forces, are expected to be deployed.
According to the NIS, 1,500 soldiers arrived in Russia, transported “by Russian warships, between October 8 and 13”. They would be distributed to military bases in the Far East, in Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk, and were to join the front at the end of their training. The NIS released detailed satellite images that it said showed the first of these deployments. A second round of transfers should happen soon, according to the service.
The day before, Volodymyr Zelensky had corroborated information from the Ukrainian intelligence services. “We have information indicating that North Korea has sent tactical personnel and officers to Ukraine, to temporarily occupied territories, and that they are preparing 10,000 troops on their soil, but they have not yet deployed them to Ukraine or Russia.”declared the Ukrainian president on Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, after a European summit to which he attended to defend his “victory plan”. “This is the first step towards a world war”he warned. Russia denounced “fake news”.
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The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, General Kyrylo Budanov, clarified on Friday that the 10,000 North Korean soldiers currently training in Russia “It will be ready for combat operations from 1Ahem November “. “They will use Russian equipment and ammunition, he added. Some 2,600 first North Korean soldiers will be sent to the Kursk region »where Ukrainian troops occupy about 1,000 km2 since their offensive on August 6. Boudanov said he did not know, at this point, where the thousands more people would be deployed. North Koreans are already believed to be present in the occupied part of Ukraine, Donbass. According to Ukrainian media, six of them were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack near Donetsk on October 3.
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