US Officials: 8,000 North Korean Troops Will Soon Enter Combat in Ukraine
Secretary of State Antony Blinken urges China to ‘use the influence that they have’ to control North Korea’s actions.
Biden administration officials are now saying that about 8,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia near Ukraine’s border and are preparing to help the Kremlin with Russia’s war efforts.
The new figure is a dramatic increase from a day earlier, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would only say some of the troops had moved toward Ukraine’s border in the Kursk region, where Moscow’s forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
That also would mean most of the North Korean troops that the U.S. and its allies say have been sent to Russia are now on the border with Ukraine.
The U.S. has estimated a total of about 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia. Seoul and its allies assessed that has increased to 11,000, while Ukraine has put the figure higher, at up to 12,000.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicates those troops have been trained for front-line action.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts in Washington, said the troops have been trained “in artillery, UAVs, basic infantry operations, including trench clearing, indicating that they fully intend to use these forces in frontline operations.”
Although the US has not yet seen the troops engaged in the actual fighting, Blinken warned Thursday that “should these troops engage in combat or combat support operations against Ukraine, they would become legitimate military targets.”
The 8,000 North Korean troops now in Kursk represent a majority of the 10,000 the US says were deployed to Russia. The announcement of their impending use in combat comes as the US and its allies weigh how to respond to the escalating military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.
“We are consulting closely with our allies and partners in other countries in the region on these reckless developments and on our response,” Austin said at Thursday’s press conference. The US will announce additional military support to Ukraine “in the coming days,” Blinken said.
The Biden administration is now reaching out to China to leverage its relationships with Moscow and Pyongyang to “curb” the entry of North Korean forces.
The U.S. had a “robust conversation” with China this week about the North Korean troops’ dispatch to Russia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after a joint news conference with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts on Thursday.
“I think they know well the concerns that we have and the expectations that, both in word and deed, they’ll use the influence that they have to work to curb these activities,” he said.
What North Korea may receive from Russia in return for the troops “should be a real concern to China,” Blinken added.
I suspect that Beijing will be unmoved by the Biden request.
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Comments
Didn’t we see this in an article a couple weeks ago?
As I remember, the Norks weren’t having a problem getting their soldiers there, but they were having a hell of a problem getting them to STAY there.
China is responsible – either through negligence or intent – for the release of an engineered virus that killed millions. I have no idea why Blinken thinks China would exert influence on the DPRK to restrain themselves. The Chicoms are chaos agents. What’s unfolded around the world the last 5-years – Covid, Biden’s ‘victory’, Iran’s increased belligerence (including 10/7), Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – has served China well and we may eventually learn that they were the unseen hand behind it all.
Blinken mistakes his relationship for one where favors flow in both directions.
And yet Trump and Tucker Carlson and others here defended the Russians in their war against Ukraine. Shameful. There is an axis of evil working against the US right now. It is Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others. But Trump and his supporters want to give up Ukraine to this Axis of Evil. God forbid this ever happens.
That’s just ridiculous
When can we expect to see you pick up a rifle and start posting from the Ukrainian front?
I mean… it’s buttholes like you who are more than willing to fight until the last Ukrainian is dead, amirite?
I bet even the Ukrainian Army isn’t so hard up for troops that they’d take an old brokedick Democrat lawyer such as you.
Then why aren’t they discussing an actual plan to defeat this Axis Of Evil other than SEND MORE MONEY.
– Who removed sanctions on Iran, delivered them billions of dollars, and helped them develop nuclear weapons? It wasn’t Trump.
– Who waived the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for Russian natural gas that Trump had blocked? It wasn’t Trump.
– Who stops weapons shipments to Israel and protects Hamas and Hezbollah from Israel? It’s not Trump.
– Who said “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we [NATO] end up having to fight about what to do and not to do.” It wasn’t Trump.
Your weird comments about evil make no sense at all.
Bruh… the Obama admin orchestrated a soft coup in Ukraine after they decided the elected govt of Ukraine wasn’t to their liking. The Biden admin along with previous d/prog admin decided to keep expanding NATO right up to the Russian border which Russia has every right to be aggrieved about. Just as we would be if Mexico joined an anti US international organization. Russia has a roughly 10 to 1 advantage in population and GDP over Ukraine. Without direct intervention by NATO or (God forbid) US forces the Ukrainians were always gonna lose, just a matter of how long it would take and how many casualties the endured before they figured out how badly the US/UK (primarily) were cynically using them as a cats paw to PO Russia in order to.support Victoria Nuland and other arrogant idiot neocon hacks like Vindman fever dreams of being relevant.
Pointing out the several decades of dumbass policy errors by neocon, forever war goons still PO/disappointed that the Cold War ended 3 decades + ago isn’t ‘defending Russia’. It is a very clear eyed view of the world in which NATO outlived its usefulness with collapse of the Soviet Empire. It apparently slips your notice that was the whole point of NATO; defense of western Europe against the Soviet Union. The Russian Republic is a whole bunch of things, many of them very unsavory, but they are NOT the Soviet Union. The USA has zero obligation to be the world police and it is well past time we returned to putting our own house in order and the interests and well being of the average US Citizen above every other concern.
NK wants drone war experience. Downsides for NK: defecting or captured NK troops, an intelligence gold mine for SK.
So what?
North Korean troops in Kursk aka Russia. There arre probably foreign troops in the US getting training.
Check out Tucker Carlson’s interview with Jeffry Sachs.
We lied at Mink1 and 2 and Istanbul. Russia now does not trust the US.
Putin is not Gobachev or Mao We could have . made a deals with him. He wanted to deal Instead we stir up trouble
Now Russia ius forced to become best buds with China
You know who said that would be a bad thing? Nixon and Kissinger.
This Ukrainian war has beern an unmitigated disaster. Worse then Vietnam and it was all our fault.
Instead of whining about pissy little things like Korea troops in Russia. we take a lesson from Bismark and practice some Realpolitic.
Well said.
Training or not, the US isn’t massing armed foreign troops on our border with Mexico.
Regarding US perfidy and Minsk I/II. The US, Russia and others signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances 1994. Putin ground it under his boot.
China will never be “best buds” with Russia. The CCP remember how Stalin treated Mao (Mao cooling his heels in the Kremlin lobby for three days.) Zhou Enlai smoothed it out. CCP has a very long memory; Russia is China’s prison bitch.
The war is indeed a horrific disaster.
The Russian leadership are congenital irredentists.
Catherine II snatched the Crimean Peninsula from the Ottoman Khanite. It was never a proper Russian historical province. What about South Ossetia? Putin snatched it up. Transnistria? KGB snatched it up. See also: Kaliningrad.
The tsars and Soviets imposed emigres and language on their neighbors, and then claim them to be Russian in need of rescue.. Catherine II did exactly that.
What about South Ossetia?
Example of historical complications regarding treaties etc.
[…] Within Georgia itself which voluntarily federated with Russia in 1783 and was afterwards annexed according to the desire formally expressed by its King in 1802 — two national centers fought for predominance, one in Kakhetia, another in Kartalinia.
The remaining kindred tribes were united to Russia each by a separate treaty of the dynasty — Mingrelia in 1803, Imerethia in 1804, Guria and Abkhazia in 1810, Svanethia in 1833.
Long after this reunion, which took place after full five centuries of separation, tribal separatisms were still alive. It was not before the last quarter of the nineteenth century that a single and united national idea was worked out by Georgian patriots, and the newly reborn Georgian literary language was definitely acknowledged as a symbol of national unity — P. N. Milyukov.
You do know that NATO expanded its membership eastward before Putin came to power on New Year’s Eve ’99? They overtly added Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary extending the offer to join in ’97 not to mention the prior German reunification.
Not sure why you would argue that treaties or conquests dating back to 1833 and beyond aren’t good enough to demonstrate compelling National interest or a legit claim. By that logic of ‘not enough time under control’ large portions of the USA are placed into dispute.
Putin is not a good guy. Russia definitely invaded Georgia and Ukraine. The question is what motivation prompted it, was it preventable with better diplomacy
or more respect offered Russia and why did successive US admin ignore the very clear signals from Russia? IMO it was hubris and arrogance by neocons who got pissy when the dog they kicked decided to bite at the nearest targets. Pointing out dumbass foreign policy decisions doesn’t make us anymore pro Russia or anti USA anymore than pointing out dumbass domestic policy does.
Quick SEND MORE MONEY NOW.
Because, you know, that’s been such a winning strategy for 2 years.
Ukraine is losing, and will CONTINUE to lose, until and unless NATO and the US sends troops. The fact that that isn’t even being discussed, says they don’t care about winning or losing, and all of their RUSSIA TEH EVILZ SLAVA UKRAINE nonsense is just propaganda to keep the money flowing.
They don’t want to win, they want to keep it going as long as possible so they can continue the grift.
Not my monkeys, not my circus.
Strange that when people are really starting to question the 10’s of Billions being sent over to that corrupt money pit suddenly this pops up. Why anyone would believe anything out of this administration is a mystery.
So 8,000 troops are going to see how the rest of the world lives for the first time. Will be interesting.
I wonder how they will be kept in line when they realize, if they are even deployed, that a destroyed war zone is in better shape than their own country.
Don’t know much about North Korea but those hate are “da bomb”. Where can I buy one with ear flaps for this winter?
Ask the “diverse Korean soldier” in the back row.
Putin is getting Nork troops in exchange for transferring missile and nuke technology to Pyongyang?
Stumbling mumbling biden has really screwed the pooch on this one. smh
The NK military are in it for one thing: food to eat.
How sad, but your statement is very reasonable, greetings
I really don’t see what the problem is, in war and love everything is fair, furthermore the North Koreans are not friends of the United States in fact they have had a belligerent policy against the Yankees for decades, furthermore, the North Korean government will always be able to say that these groups act independently as simple mercenaries without nationality, in other words here the part of international law is superfluous, what matters is the political game.