North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, South Korean lawmakers say. Zelenskyi prepares an internal plan for Ukrainians to boost the country’s resilience. An advance on Zaporizhzhia could be Russia’s next objective, according to The Economist.
North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for Ukraine war, South Korea says
North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, South Korean lawmakers said on Wednesday after being briefed by the national intelligence agency, according to Reuters.
Pyongyang had promised to provide a total of about 10,000 troops, whose deployment was expected to be completed by December, the lawmakers told reporters.
The latest numbers came after Seoul’s National Intelligence Service said on Friday the North had sent some 1,500 special forces personnel to Russia by ship. “Signs of troops being trained inside North Korea were detected in September and October,” Park Sun-won, a member of a parliamentary intelligence committee, said after the briefing.
Both Moscow and Pyongyang have also denied weapons transfers, but they have pledged to boost military ties and signed a mutual defence treaty at a summit in June. The Kremlin has previously dismissed Seoul’s claims about the North’s troop deployment as “fake news”.
Pyongyang has not publicly responded to the claims by Seoul and Kyiv, but authorities there made efforts to keep news of the dispatch from spreading, said Lee Seong-kweun, another lawmaker on the South Korean committee. “There are also signs of North Korean authorities relocating and isolating those families (of the troops) in a certain place in order to effectively control them and thoroughly crack down on the rumours,” Lee said, citing the spy agency.
Lee also said the agency confirmed that Russia had recruited a “large number” of interpreters for the North Korean soldiers, while training them in the use of military equipment such as drones. “Russian instructors are assessing that the North Korean military has excellent physical attributes and morale but lacks understanding of modern warfare such as drone attacks,” he said.
Lawmaker Park said Pyongyang may be seeking in return to prompt intervention by Russia in case of a contingency on the Korean peninsula as well as receive economic assistance.
On Tuesday the South’s presidential office urged an immediate withdrawal of the North’s troops from Russia, warning that it may consider supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine if military ties between them went too far.
The United States said for the first time on Wednesday that it had seen evidence of North Korean troops in Russia.
“There is evidence that there are DPRK troops in Russia,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters, using North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “What exactly they’re doing remains to be seen,” Austin said while in Rome. “These are things that we need to sort out.”
Zelenskyi prepares internal plan for Ukrainians to boost country’s resilience
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi instructed the government to draw up proposals for the so-called internal action plan to help the country thrive in times of war, BBC Ukraine said, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials. The document will offer solutions in a number of sectors, including the military-industrial complex, defense, economy, and social policy.
The initiative is not meant to replace the victory plan. While the latter details the steps to be taken by Ukraine’s western allies to make sure that the country prevails, the internal plan will consist of the points that Ukraine has to implement. “The President has already instructed [the team] to develop a plan,” a source at the Office of the President that was granted anonymity told BBC Ukraine. The plan will be prepared and presented to the Ukrainians by the end of the year, he added.
“The aim is to make every effort to preserve unity and achieve the results in various sectors that contribute to the country’s growth,” the source said.
Advance on Zaporizhzhia could be Russia’s next objective, according to The Economist
A senior Ukrainian official, cited by The Economist, says Russia’s next objective might be an advance on the city of Zaporizhia, a major industrial centre in Ukraine’s south close to a Russian-occupied nuclear-power plant.
The same source suggests that Russia may have already taken back as much as half of the territory that Ukraine seized in the Kursk region in August 2024.
Russia is in the process of encircling Pokrovsk, an important logistical hub in eastern Ukraine, and advancing farther south, after taking control of the heights around Vuhledar.
Ukraine’s worries go beyond the shaky front lines. Western support, already stretched thin, is looking more precarious than before.
This week the G7 further fleshed out the details of a loan of $50bn, to be paid for by interest on seized Russian assets; final agreement should be reached in the next few days.
But if Donald Trump wins America’s election, now two weeks away, much of its direct military assistance could be choked off. A victory by Kamala Harris offers no promises either. Germany, Ukraine’s second-biggest backer, has already signaled that aid will fall. France has done likewise.