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Opinion
US-China war diplomacy vital as North Korea complicates Ukraine fray
The scale and speed of Pyongyang’s reported troop deployment to Russia strongly suggests premeditation. The US and China must act to prevent escalation
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Lee Min-Yong is a visiting professor in the School of Global Service at Sookmyung Women’s University, South Korea and a former adviser (foreign affairs and national security) to the Presidential Office of the Republic of Korea.
The threatening nature of the military cooperation between North Korea and Russia has become clear with the reported deployment of North Korean combat troops to Russia. This development came as a surprise, as few had anticipated troop movements so soon after the North Korea-Russia treaty signed in June.
South Korea’s intelligence agency first detected the movement of North Korean special forces on October 8. Satellite imagery reportedly showed troops being transported aboard multiple Russian warships. At the time, around 3,000 including special forces were thought to have been deployed, with the number expected to reach 10,000 by year’s end.
On October 23, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin publicly confirmed the troop deployment. A week later, on October 31, he warned that 10,000 North Korean soldiers had arrived in Russia, had been outfitted with Russian military uniforms and equipment, and were expected to be moved to battlefields in Ukraine – with around 8,000 in the Kursk border region.
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