MONITORING (SW) – If North Korea were to send troops to Ukraine to fight on Russia’s behalf it would significantly escalate the conflict, NATO Chief Mark Rutte has said.
Rutte, who took office at NATO at the start of the month, said he had a discussion with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol about the alliance’s close partnership with Seoul, focusing on defense industrial cooperation and the interconnected security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions, reported Reuters.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that North Korea was preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow’s war effort, and that some North Korean officers were already deployed on Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
The West has long accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russia. Rutte and the Pentagon both said last week that they have found no evidence yet of a North Korean military presence on the ground in Ukraine.
South Korea on Friday claimed that the North had sent 1,500 soldiers to Russia aboard navy ships on Oct. 8-13, to support Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
Pyongyang is planning to send around 10,000 troops to Russia, the National Intelligence Service said, according to the Yonhap News.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also claimed that Russia was preparing to deploy 10,000 North Korean soldiers in the fight against Kyiv.
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