North Korean troops to enter Ukraine war ‘soon’

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — The United States expects that thousands of North Korean troops massing in Russia will “soon” enter combat against Ukraine, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said Saturday.

About 10,000 North Korean soldiers were believed to be based in the Russian border region of Kursk, Austin said, where they were being “integrated into the Russian formations.”

“Based upon what they’ve been trained on, the way they’ve been integrated into the Russian formations, I fully expect to see them engaged in combat soon,” Austin told reporters during a stopover in Pacific nation Fiji.

Austin said he had “not seen significant reporting” of North Korean troops being “actively engaged in combat” to date.

South Korean government officials and a research group on Thursday said Russia has provided Pyongyang with oil, anti-air missiles and economic help in exchange for the troops Washington and Seoul have accused it of sending.

Kyiv has warned that Moscow, alongside the North Korean soldiers, has now amassed a 50,000-strong force to wrest back parts of the border region seized by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine claimed swathes of Kursk in August during a lightning offensive even as its troops were thinly stretched in the Donetsk region, which has borne the brunt of nearly three years of fighting.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday promised more combat test-firing of an experimental hypersonic missile launched at Ukraine, as his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, appealed for updated air-defense systems to meet the new threat.

The latest statements from the leaders came hours after Ukraine’s parliament shut down over heightened fears of a missile attack.

A day after Moscow fired the new missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Putin said there would be more tests of the new Oreshnik missile.

“We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and character of the security threats posted to Russia,” Putin said in a televised meeting with military chiefs.

Russia would also begin serial production of the experimental weapon, he added.