Ukraine war-N Korea troops
SEOUL, April 17 (Yonhap) — Russia is planning to deploy North Korean soldiers on Ukrainian territory in the ongoing war between the two countries, dressing them in Russian uniforms, a Ukrainian security official has claimed.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council’s Center for Countering Disinformation, posted the claim on his Telegram account the previous day.
Once North Korean troops are deployed on Ukrainian territory, Russia would claim that they are fighting on Russian territory as defined by the Russian constitution, Kovalenko said, citing Ukrainian lands written into the Russian constitution.
During the initial year of the conflict in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin enacted legislation to incorporate the territories occupied by Russia within Ukraine – namely Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson – into the Russian Federation. However, this annexation has not been acknowledged by the global community.
Since signing a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with North Korea in June last year, thousands of North Korean troops have been deployed to support Russia in its war against Ukraine, with their combat operations so far limited to the Russian frontline region of Kursk.
Kovalenko’s remarks suggest that North Korean troops could be deployed to the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, especially as Russia is now in the final stage of pushing back Ukrainian forces from Kursk, possibly raising the need to assign new roles to them.
“The North Korean soldiers will wear Russian uniforms, just as they did in Kursk Oblast,” Kovalenko said in the Russian-language post, translated into English.
He also claimed Russia is also actively bringing in laborers from North Korea to work in factories and the North Korean authorities are in return receiving money from Russia, starting from US$1,000 per person.
This is the same approach the Soviet government took after the 1950-53 Korean War to attract cheap labor for its industries in exchange for providing resources to North Korea, he also said, adding North Korean workers and their families receive only a small portion of the compensation from Russia.
pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)
Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.
