United States: The US government officials confirmed on Wednesday that North Korea has sent troops to Russia to join the fight against Ukraine, a major shift in Moscow’s effort to win the war.
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A ‘very, very serious’ escalation by the North would have repercussions in both Europe and Asia, said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.
According to Mr. Austin, “What exactly are they doing? Left to be seen,” at a military base in Italy post-trip to Ukraine. However, he gave no further details regarding the total number of troops that have already been posted there or the number expected to arrive.
He took President Vladimir V. Putin’s pressing of North Korean mercenaries as a sign of desperation.
According to him, “This is an indication that he may be in even more trouble than most people realize,” the New York Times reported.

“He went tin-cupping early on to get additional weapons and materials from the D.P.R.K.,” he stated, while using the abbreviation for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, “and then from Iran, and now he’s making a move to get more people.”
What are intelligence analysts discerning?
Intelligence analysts were still trying to determine if the troops were moving toward Ukraine, he said.
Ukrainian officials are fighting that premise, saying they are headed there, and Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday he anticipates seeing North Korean troops in Kursk, the Russian territory Ukraine occupies, in days to come.
American intelligence officials said they were preparing to release a trove of intelligence, including satellite photographs, that show troop ships from North Korea moving to training areas on Russian territory on Russia’s east coast and even beyond to the North.
But South Korean and Ukrainian government reports of the movements—about more than 12,000 North Koreans training to fight alongside Russian soldiers—have been circulating for two weeks now.
About 3,000 North Korean troops were tracked from Wonsan in North Korea to the Russian port city of Vladivostok between early to mid-October on the ship, a national security spokesman at the White House, John F. Kirby, said Wednesday.
Mr. Kirby declined to assess what kind of training the North Korean troops were getting – nor whether they would actually be deployed to the war in Ukraine and, if so, how useful they would be since, of course, there are the language and cultural differences.