Quotes
The Kremlin's apparent desire to assure South Korea that its cooperation with North Korea is not a threat to Seoul suggests that the Kremlin remains very concerned about the prospect of Seoul's potential pivot towards providing Ukraine with necessary military support, and the implications of worsened relations with Seoul for Russian security interests in the Asia Pacific region,
its analysts wrote on Monday The Ukraine war and its spillover to the Korean peninsula are taking a hard toll on the Seoul-Moscow relationship,
wrote analyst Ellen Kim of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in February It is rather surprising that Russia would want such troops in combat, considering the probable logistic and other challenges that integrating such troops into Russian combat operations will likely entail,
The grim reality is that the North Korean troops will likely simply be cannon fodder for Russia,
said Edward Howell, a North Korea expert at the University of Oxford They don't care about their international status being lowered,
To conduct combat operations with an allied force that doesn't speak your language presents real problems,
I can't confirm those reports, but if that is the case, it's serious."
The United States responded cautiously, with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin telling reporters during the G7 defense ministers' meeting in Naples, Italy, on Saturday To me the easiest explanation is that South Korea thinks North Korea is getting something sufficiently valuable for that troop deployment, so that it makes sense to take some risk to impose costs on Russia,
People tend to think that North Korea will just send a few soldiers, receive economic support and get minor military technologies in return. But Kim Jong Un’s perspective is much broader than that,
They won't look very strong if they don't react somehow. And sending weapons to Ukraine is something they are de facto doing already,
Although the number of troops being deployed might be small, the implications of such deployment are significant,
For North Korea, fighting in Russia is not just about helping Russia — it’s seen as participating in North Korea’s own sacred war against the U.S.,
We would consider supplying weapons for defensive purposes as part of the step-by-step scenarios, and if it seems they are going too far, we might also consider offensive use,
the presidential official told reporters, signalling Seoul’s most proactive position towards arming Ukraine to date It seems that the harder Putin finds it to recruit Russians to be cannon fodder, the more willing he is to rely on the DPRK [North Korea] in his illegal war,
Dame Barbara Woodward, the permanent UK representative to the United Nations, said while speaking in New York It looks like the fighters on the ground decided to tease the enemy,
the channel wrote on Telegram But we do know that North Korea is supporting Russia in many ways, weapons supplies, technological supplies, innovation, to support them in the war effort—and that is highly worrying,
What we know is that North Korea is already preparing a contingent to fight against Ukraine,
Zelensky said during a press conference in Belgium earlier this month Putin is clearly desperate. His desperation is a danger to us all.”
This moment from Woodward’s speech was clipped and posted on social media by the U.K. at the U.N.’s account, along with a caption which reads Sending troops to Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine is a significant security threat not only to our country but also to the international community,
the National Security Council said As for the so-called military cooperation with Russia, my delegation does not feel any need for comment on such groundless, stereotyped rumours,
a North Korean representative said at a committee meeting during the UN General Assembly