The National Resistance Center, created by Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, made the announcement on its website Monday as the United States said the North has sent about 10,000 soldiers to train in eastern Russia.
“According to the information of the concerned population of the Kursk region, more than 3,000 mercenaries from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have begun to organize themselves on the ground,” it said, referring to North Korea by its official name.
Ukraine earlier said North Korean troops have started moving into the Kursk border region in western Russia, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion in August.
The website said North Korean troops are training at a number of training grounds, and they are brought in mostly at night, adding that officials of the North’s embassy have also arrived to act as their interpreters and observe them.
“It is not yet known when the regime’s soldiers will be sent directly to the war zone and how long the training will last. However, the locations of the militants are known,” it said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on the social media platform X on Sunday that North Korean troops could join the battlefield against Ukraine “in a matter of days.”
A high-level South Korean delegation briefed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the North’s troop deployment to Russia on Monday, with one of the officials saying the dispatch is taking place faster than previously expected.
Yonhap
