North Koreans “engaged in combat operations” with Russia, according to the United States

The United States confirmed on Tuesday that North Korean troops were “engaged in combat operations” alongside Russian soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, a small part of which is occupied by Ukrainian forces, corroborating kyiv’s accusations . “I can confirm that more than 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, most of them arriving in the Kursk region, where they began engaging in combat operations with Russian forces,” he said on Tuesday. the spokesperson for the American Department of State, Vedant Patel, emphasizing the “concern” of the United States about this alliance.

According to kyiv, some 11,000 North Korean soldiers are already deployed in Russia and have started fighting against Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region where the latter have been on the offensive since August. This deployment greatly worries Western countries which support Ukraine.

A historic agreement between North Korea and Russia

American Defense Minister Lloyd Austin called on North Korea at the end of October to “withdraw its troops from Russia” while the deputy American ambassador to the UN warned that North Korean soldiers would “necessarily leave in body bags” if they entered Ukraine to support Russia.

“We are incredibly concerned about Russia’s decision to turn to North Korea to provide soldiers to continue its brutal war against Ukraine,” Vedant Patel added on Tuesday. He said Moscow trained North Korean soldiers in artillery, the use of drones and basic infantry operations. “Russia’s success on the battlefield (…) will largely depend on the extent to which the Russians can integrate (North Korean soldiers) into their army,” he said, stressing challenges like “interoperability or language barrier”. The Kremlin has so far evaded questions about this presence of North Korean reinforcements.

But North Korea ratified a historic defense agreement with Russia on Monday, sealing their rapprochement, according to the official North Korean agency KCNA. Russian President Vladimir Putin also signed this mutual defense treaty, the Kremlin announced this weekend. Concluded during a rare visit by Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang in June, this treaty between two of Washington’s beasts provides in particular for reciprocal “immediate military aid” in the event of an attack against one of the two countries.