Signs point to N. Korea sending over 1,000 more troops to Russia: spy agency

By Lee Hyo-jin

North Korea recently deployed around 1,000 additional soldiers to Russia to assist in its military operations in Ukraine, according to the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Thursday.

The latest deployment follows an initial mobilization of 11,000 soldiers last October.

"After about a monthlong lull, more North Korean troops were sent to the Kursk front-line region in the first week of February. The additional deployment is estimated to exceed 1,000 troops, but the exact number is still being assessed," the spy agency said in a statement.

This development follows an earlier assessment by the NIS, which indicated that the North Korean forces initially deployed to Russia had been absent from the battlefield since mid-January.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) stated that it is closely monitoring developments regarding the involvement of North Korean forces in the war in Ukraine.

"We are closely monitoring the situation," JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-joon said during a briefing, declining to provide further comments.

A military source told The Korea Times that "once North Korean soldiers leave their home territory by ship or train, they fall off the South Korean military's surveillance radar, making it difficult to specify their exact location."

The Ministry of Unification said it currently lacks information to confirm the troop deployment but acknowledged that the possibility of additional dispatches falls within the expected range, especially concerning the personnel replacement system required to maintain combat effectiveness.

"We are in close communication with relevant ministries on these worrisome developments," foreign ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said during a briefing when asked about North Korea's latest troop dispatch.

According to the spy agency, North Korea sent up to 11,000 troops to assist Russia in its invasion of Ukraine last October, in a rare dispatch of its soldiers to a foreign war zone. The soldiers have primarily been stationed in the border region of Kursk. Out of this number, an estimated 4,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded. Two of them were captured by Ukrainian forces and are currently being held in Kyiv for interrogation.

Despite the increasing casualties among North Korean troops, several media reports indicate that there have been no signs of bodies being returned to the North thus far. Some sources suggest that the costs associated with the transfer, along with the secretive nature of troop deployments, might be the underlying reasons behind North Korea's refusal to repatriate the bodies.

Pyongyang is believed to be receiving economic and military support from Moscow in exchange for the deployment of troops. Neither Russia nor North Korea has publicly acknowledged this exchange.