Visiting the Fiji Islands, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said on Saturday, November 23, that the United States expects the thousands of North Korean soldiers stationed in Russia to go “soon” to fight Ukrainian forces.
The US Secretary of Defense estimated that some 10,000 members of the North Korean army are in the Russian region of Kursk, bordering Ukraine and partly occupied by kyiv's forces, and are “integrated into the formations Russians.
“Based on what (North Korean soldiers) were trained to do, how they were integrated into Russian training, I fully expect to see them engaged in combat soon“, Lloyd Austin said. On the other hand, he said he had “not seen any significant reports” of North Korean soldiers “actively engaged in combat” to date.
South Korean government officials and a research organization said this week that Moscow was providing fuel, anti-aircraft missiles and economic aid to Pyongyang in exchange for troops. South Korea and the United States accuse North Korea of sending military troops to Russia.
For its part, Ukraine warned that Russia had gathered some 50,000 soldiers, including several thousand North Korean soldiers, to regain control of areas in the Kursk region occupied by the Ukrainian army which launched an offensive there in early August.
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