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Officials Say North Korea Has Sent Troops to Russia. What Would That Mean for the War With Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (AFP)
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Officials Say North Korea Has Sent Troops to Russia. What Would That Mean for the War With Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (AFP)

American and South Korean officials said Wednesday that there’s evidence North Korea has dispatched troops to Russia in a potential escalation of the nearly 3-year-old war with Ukraine.
If the soldiers' goal is fighting with Russia in Ukraine, it would be the first time a third country puts boots on the ground in the war. Other countries on both sides of the divide have sent military aid, including weapons and training: Iran has supplied Russia with drones, and Western nations have provided Ukraine with modern weapons and financial and humanitarian assistance, The Associated Press said.
South Korea’s spy chief told lawmakers that 3,000 North Korean troops were being trained to use equipment including drones before being sent to fight in Ukraine. United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters during a visit to Rome that “we are seeing evidence that there are North Korean troops” who have gone to Russia.
“What exactly they’re doing — left to be seen," Austin said. Neither Austin nor South Korean National Intelligence Service Director Cho Tae-yong provided details about how they knew about the North Korean troops, and many questions surround the impact of North Korean participation.
What do we know about the North Korean troops? North Korean troops were arriving in Russia’s Kursk region as early as Wednesday to help Russian troops fight off a Ukrainian border incursion, Ukraine Military Intelligence Directorate head Kyrylo Budanov told the online military news outlet The War Zone on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters Monday that North Korean officers and technical personnel have already been spotted in Russian-occupied territories. He did not specify when.
“I believe they sent officers first to assess the situation before deploying troops,” Zelenskyy said. He has cautioned that the participation of a third country could escalate the conflict into a world war. Austin said that it would be a “very, very serious issue” if Pyongyang indeed did join the war on Russia’s side.
What is Ukraine doing? Ukraine is preparing as though combating North Korea in its territory is inevitable.
An injection of 10,000 North Korean troops, which is what both Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence have claimed, "could significantly destabilize Ukraine’s defense there and greatly accelerate the advancement of Russian forces,” said Glib Voloskyi, an analyst from a Ukrainian think tank, Come Back Alive Initiatives Center.
Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” project, a hotline encouraging Russian soldiers to surrender, published a video in Korean on Wednesday calling for North Korean soldiers to give up.
“We call for the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army, who were sent to help the Putin regime. You should not die senselessly on someone else’s land. There is no need to repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home!"
How is the West reacting? Zelenskyy told reporters Monday that the European Union and the US have been cautious in publicly addressing North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia — describing their reactions as “very restrained.”
German and British officials also weighed in, with South Korea hinting that it could support Ukraine with military weapons in the event of North Korea’s confirmed involvement.
“We don’t even know whether we are talking about 1,500 or 12,000, or which kind of soldiers are coming to Russia and to fight where and against," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. “It’s a kind of escalation and it shows us a very important, a very important aspect. International conflicts are approaching very rapidly.”
United Kingdom Defense Secretary John Healey said there was "not just a concern about the potential for an escalation of conflict in Europe. There is an indivisible link with security concerns in the Indo-Pacific as well.”
Why does Russia need North Korea? North Korea and Russia, both in separate confrontations with the West, have deepened their military cooperation in the past two years. In June, they signed a defense deal requiring both countries to provide military assistance if the other is attacked.
For analysts, the introduction of troops would be a sign that the war isn’t going as Russia planned.
“I think Ukraine is wearing down the Russian army as we talk. You don’t get thousands of soldiers from North Korea if your war is going well,” said Justin Crump, a former British tank commander who heads Sibylline, a strategic advisory firm. “You don’t require them."
North Korea has already sent over 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles. Those missiles are being actively used against Ukrainian targets, officials in Kyiv say.

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What to Know about Sudden Gains of the Opposition in Syria's 13-year War and Why it Matters

Fighters seize a Syrian Army tank near the international M5 highway in the area Zarbah which was taken over by anti-government factions on November 29, 2024, as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied groups continue their offensive in Syria's northern Aleppo province against government forces. (Photo by Rami al SAYED / AFP)
Fighters seize a Syrian Army tank near the international M5 highway in the area Zarbah which was taken over by anti-government factions on November 29, 2024, as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied groups continue their offensive in Syria's northern Aleppo province against government forces. (Photo by Rami al SAYED / AFP)
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What to Know about Sudden Gains of the Opposition in Syria's 13-year War and Why it Matters

Fighters seize a Syrian Army tank near the international M5 highway in the area Zarbah which was taken over by anti-government factions on November 29, 2024, as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied groups continue their offensive in Syria's northern Aleppo province against government forces. (Photo by Rami al SAYED / AFP)
Fighters seize a Syrian Army tank near the international M5 highway in the area Zarbah which was taken over by anti-government factions on November 29, 2024, as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied groups continue their offensive in Syria's northern Aleppo province against government forces. (Photo by Rami al SAYED / AFP)

The 13-year civil war in Syria has roared back into prominence with a surprise opposition offensive on Aleppo, one of Syria's largest cities and an ancient business hub. The push is among the opposition’s strongest in years in a war whose destabilizing effects have rippled far beyond the country's borders.
It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power, within the 70% of Syria under his control.
The surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when US-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both Iranian-allied groups.
Robert Ford, the last-serving US ambassador to Syria, pointed to months of Israeli strikes on Syrian and Hezbollah targets in the area, and to Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon this week, as factors providing Syria’s opposition groups with the opportunity to advance.
Here's a look at some of the key aspects of the new fighting:
Why does the fighting at Aleppo matter? Assad has been at war with opposition forces seeking his overthrow for 13 years, a conflict that's killed an estimated half-million people. Some 6.8 million Syrians have fled the country, a refugee flow that helped change the political map in Europe by fueling anti-immigrant far-right movements.
The roughly 30% of the country not under Assad is controlled by a range of opposition forces and foreign troops. The US has about 900 troops in northeast Syria, far from Aleppo, to guard against a resurgence by the ISIS extremist group. Both the US and Israel conduct occasional strikes in Syria against government forces and Iran-allied militias. Türkiye has forces in Syria as well, and has influence with the broad alliance of opposition forces storming Aleppo.
Coming after years with few sizeable changes in territory between Syria's warring parties, the fighting “has the potential to be really quite, quite consequential and potentially game-changing,” if Syrian government forces prove unable to hold their ground, said Charles Lister, a longtime Syria analyst with the US-based Middle East Institute. Risks include if ISIS fighters see it as an opening, Lister said.
Ford said the fighting in Aleppo would become more broadly destabilizing if it drew Russia and Türkiye— each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct heavy fighting against each other. -
What do we know about the group leading the offensive on Aleppo? The US and UN have long designated the opposition force leading the attack at Aleppo — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, known by its initials HTS — as a terrorist organization.
Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, emerged as the leader of al-Qaeda's Syria branch in 2011, in the first months of Syria's war. His fight was an unwelcome intervention to many in Syria's opposition, who hoped to keep the fight against Assad's brutal rule untainted by violent extremism.
Golani early on claimed responsibility for deadly bombings, pledged to attack Western forces and sent religious police to enforce modest dress by women.
Golani has sought to remake himself in recent years. He renounced his al-Qaeda ties in 2016. He's disbanded his religious police force, cracked down on extremist groups in his territory, and portrayed himself as a protector of other religions. That includes last year allowing the first Christian Mass in the city of Idlib in years.
What's the history of Aleppo in the war? At the crossroads of trade routes and empires for thousands of years, Aleppo is one of the centers of commerce and culture in the Middle East.
Aleppo was home to 2.3 million people before the war. Opposition forces seized the east side of the city in 2012, and it became the proudest symbol of the advance of armed opposition factions.
In 2016, government forces backed by Russian airstrikes laid siege to the city. Russian shells, missiles and crude barrel bombs — fuel canisters or other containers loaded with explosives and metal — methodically leveled neighborhoods. Starving and under siege, the opposition surrendered Aleppo that year.
The Russian military's entry was the turning point in the war, allowing Assad to stay on in the territory he held.
This year, Israeli airstrikes in Aleppo have hit Hezbollah weapons depots and Syrian forces, among other targets, according to an independent monitoring group. Israel rarely acknowledges strikes at Aleppo and other government-held areas of Syria.