North Korea may deploy up to 100,000 troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine

North Korea could send up to 100,000 troops to support Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, marking a significant expansion of the Pyongyang-Moscow alliance, Bloomberg reported on 17 November.

The meeting comes as North Korea supplies Russia with artillery rounds, missiles, and thousands of troops to aid Russia in the war against Ukraine. Russia has assembled 50,000 troops in Kursk Oblast, including North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms, for an imminent offensive. Ukrainian forces currently hold 600 sq km of the 1,100 sq km of Russian territory they captured there in August 2024.

The deployment would likely occur gradually through rotational batches rather than as a single force, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the assessments who spoke anonymously.

Ukraine’s ambassador to South Korea, Dmytro Ponomarenko, said that Kyiv expects “up to 15,000 North Korean troops deployed to fight in Russia’s Kursk Oblast – and possibly in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine – to rotate every few months.”

A source close to the Russian defense ministry indicated that rotation would be necessary to maintain the force’s effectiveness. “It was logical to have a mechanism to replenish losses by the North Korean side. Otherwise, the contingent will quickly disappear in battles and lose its combat value,” the source said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has taken a strong stance on the development, telling Putin in a rare phone call that the deployment of North Korean troops represented a “grave escalation” of the war.

Scholz plans to raise the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Brazil, seeking China’s influence to prevent further escalation.

The matter has sparked concern among Ukraine’s allies, who view it as potentially expanding Europe’s largest conflict since World War II and affecting the Indo-Pacific region’s security balance.

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