US says ‘evidence’ North Korea has sent troops to Russia
Al Jazeera
Seoul’s intelligence agency says double the number of soldiers previously stated sent to fight against Ukraine.
The United States has said there is evidence that North Korea has sent soldiers to Russia as South Korea said about 3,000 soldiers are being trained before being deployed to battlefields in Ukraine.
Confirming their presence on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Rome that further clarity was needed on what the soldiers have been doing there.
“There is evidence that there are [North Korean] troops in Russia,” Austin said. “What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”
The National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s spy agency, said on Wednesday that another 1,500 North Korean soldiers joined the 1,500 the agency recently estimated had reached Russia earlier in October.
North Korea has promised to provide about 10,000 soldiers to Russia, whose deployment was likely to be completed by December, South Korean legislators told journalists.
