North Korea could deploy more troops in Russia in July or August to help its war against Ukraine, with recruitment efforts already underway for another wave of military support in Moscow, South Korean intelligence said on Thursday.
Last week, the secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Sergei Shoigu, said that the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had decided to send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sapper, or combat engineers, to support the efforts of demining and reconstruction in the border region of Kursk, according to the Russian state media Tass and Ria Novosti.
Since last fall, North Korea has already deployed more than 12,000 soldiers in Russia to fight the Ukrainian forces which occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine, the United States and South Korea. In April, Russia and North Korea confirmed that their soldiers had fought Ukrainian forces there but did not disclose the number.
During a close meeting on Thursday, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in South Korea told a parliamentary committee that North Korea had recently started to recruit additional troops and would probably send them to Russia in July or August.
The NIS noted that the deployment by North Korea of military troops in Russia last year also occurred a month after the visit of Shoigu in the country where it signed an agreement with Pyongyang officials, said the South Korean legislator Lee Seong Kweun who attended the briefing.
The NIS also said that North Korea continued to contribute significantly to the war effort of Russia, in particular by providing weapons. Moscow, in turn, provided Pyongyang with economic cooperation, air defense missiles and radio shock equipment, he said.
Russia has also provided technical advice to North Korea on satellite launches, drones and missile orientation capacities, said Lee, quoting NIS.
“The National Intelligence Service said that it tried to minimize the impact on the security of the Korean peninsula, because close relations between North Korea and Russia can develop due to the additional dispatch of North Korean combat troops,” said Lee.
Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for interviews with Kim Jong Un and signed a mutual defense treaty. Since then, the two countries have lined up closely with military cooperation, including the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia.
The deployment reports of North Korean troops in Russia surfaced for the first time last October. While evidence of their presence increased – including when North Korean soldiers were taken in captivity by Ukrainian forces in Kursk and were questioned – neither North Korea nor Russia recognized their presence until this year in April.
Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.