Alarms are sounding from both South Korea and Ukraine about a greatly increased military support from North Korea to Russia. About 1,500 North Korean soldiers are said to be currently being trained by the Russians for combat against Ukraine, and thousands more are said to be on the way.
On Monday, South Korea’s foreign minister summoned Russia’s ambassador and demanded that the Russians send the North Korean soldiers home and that they end military cooperation with North Korea.
The US and NATO have expressed serious concern about the development but have yet to explicitly confirm the information.
North Korea has not commented, but Russia has. During the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the accusations “contradictory”, but at the same time did not deny them. He also said that the cooperation between North Korea and Russia is not aimed at “third countries”.
North Korea is currently one of Russia’s main partners and is said to have sent millions of artillery shells and robots to the Russian military during the war.
Hear from Korea expert Mats Engman about what Russia and North Korea stand to gain from the allegedly escalated military exchange in the video above.