Worthy Christian News > Wars and Rumors of Wars > US Says 11,000 North Korean Troops Ready For Battle Against Ukrainian Forces

US Says 11,000 North Korean Troops Ready For Battle Against Ukrainian Forces

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

WASHINGTON/KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – As Americans focused on the U.S. presidential elections, outgoing President Joe Biden was trying to prevent the Russia-Ukraine from escalating into a broader conflict with reports that at least 11,000 North Korean troops moved toward Ukrainian positions.

Kyiv and Washington said North Koretroops had reached the Kursk border region in Russia, which Ukrainian troops have partly occupied, forcing Moscow to halt its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said: “We think that the total number of DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] forces in Russia … could be closer to around 11 to 12,000,” with “at least 10,000 right now in the Kursk oblast”.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the West for what he views as its muted response to the North Korean involvement in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two.“We see an increase in North Koreans and no increase in the reaction of our partners, unfortunately,” the Ukrainian president complained late Monday.

Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said that, like the Russian army, “the North Koreans pose a threat to Ukraine. They are present there, and, of course, they will die.”

Andriy Sybiga, Zelenskyy’s foreign minister, added, “We call on Europe to realize that North Korean troops are now waging an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state. This proves once again that while the West is afraid of and hesitates, Russia is acting and going for escalation.”

Commentators said Kim Jong-un’s troops are either the boost Russia needs or simple cannon fodder, depending on who you ask.

NO COMBAT

However, none have ever seen actual combat; they will be fighting on unfamiliar territory, and like their civilian compatriots, North Korean soldiers suffer from malnutrition and disease, according to observers.

They arrived while Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, visited Ukraine on Monday, offering “rock-solid” support in what critics said amounted to “a symbolic display.”

Germany is Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the U.S., but its chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is refusing to provide long-range Taurus missiles that could strike military targets deeper inside Russia.

He has also rejected Ukraine’s request to immediately be invited into the NATO military alliance.

Baerbock’s arrival was announced a few hours after 13 people, including four police officers, were reportedly wounded in another night of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.

Ukraine said it had downed 50 Iranian-designed Russian drones in nine regions, including over the capital, Kyiv, overnight into Monday.

Zelensky later said Russia had been using around 10 times more drones compared with the same period last year.

GERMAN MINISTER

The German minister was due to talk about preventing further escalation of the armed conflict after an incendiary device hidden in a DHL courier service package that caught fire in Germany in July was due to be sent by air to Britain as part of a suspected Russian sabotage plot, officials said.

Officials say the discovered plot may also have been “a dry run” for a similar attack on the United States and Canada.

European counterparts in Germany, Poland, and Lithuania “strongly suspect Russia” was behind this and other attacks as part of an effort to cause “mayhem” in the West in retaliation for Western military support to Ukraine.

The talks came while people in Ukraine were warned against supporting Russia: A woman from the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk was given 15 years’ jail on high treason charges “for aiding invading Russian forces,” Ukrainian prosecutors said on Monday.

Between March and April this year, she allegedly passed information about Ukrainian troop deployments to the Russian army.

The information included where Ukrainian forces were stationed and the placement of checkpoints, according to prosecutors.

Ukraine has reportedly opened thousands of cases of potential aiding and abetting Russia since the February 2022 invasion. Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded.