North Korea may send additional troops to Russia as early as July or August to support its war in Ukraine, with recruitment for a new wave of military assistance already in progress, South Korean intelligence informed lawmakers on Thursday.
Last week, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has decided to send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers, or combat engineers, to support demining and reconstruction efforts in the Kursk border region, according to Russian state media Tass and RIA Novosti.
Since last fall, North Korea has already deployed more than 12,000 troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine, the United States, and South Korea. In April, Russia and North Korea confirmed their soldiers fought the Ukrainian forces together there but did not disclose how many.
In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told a parliamentary committee that North Korea recently began recruiting additional troops and will likely send them to Russia in July or August.
The NIS noted that North Korea’s deployment of military troops to Russia last year also came just a month after Shoigu’s visit to the country where he signed an agreement with officials in Pyongyang, said South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun who attended the briefing.
