Over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday.
Rutte also confirmed the deployment of North Korean soldiers to fight on the Russian side in Kursk, a region seized by Ukraine. Evidence of the soldiers’ presence in Russia has been building over the past few weeks.
The deployment is a sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “growing desperation,” Rutte said, adding that Putin is “unable to sustain his assault in Ukraine without foreign support.”
Rutte denounced the “deepening military cooperation” between Moscow and Pyongyang and called on democracies to uphold their shared values and support Ukraine.
“NATO allies will continue to support a free and democratic Ukraine, because Ukraine’s security is our security,” he said.
NATO hosted a delegation of South Korean intelligence officials and Defence Ministry officials at the headquarters of the military alliance for a briefing on the situation to confirm the deployment.
The involvement of North Korean soldiers “undermines peace on the Korean Peninsula and fuels the Russian war against Ukraine,” Rutte said.
NATO calls on North Korea and Russia to “cease these actions immediately,” Rutte said.
The NATO secretary general said North Korea has already supplied Russia with millions of rounds of ammunition and ballistic missiles and was fuelling a major conflict in Europe.
South Korea’s intelligence service last week told members of parliament that North Korea had already sent about 3,000 soldiers to Russia, the Yonhap news agency reported.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also confirmed that the United States had “evidence” that North Korean troops are in Russia but that it is not yet clear what they are doing.
Deaths and injury in Ukrainian city of Kherson
The NATO report of new North Korean support for Russia comes after at least two people died as a result of Russian military action in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and a further three were injured, according to regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin on Monday.
Images published on Prokudin’s Telegram channel showed burnt-out apartments in a multi-storey building.
The Dnipro River has marked the front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces since Russian forces withdrew from the city to the opposite bank in November 2022.
Moscow continues to lay claim to the entire Kherson region. Ukraine has been defending itself against the full-scale Russian invasion for more than two and a half years.
Drone attacks
Russian forces launched 100 combat drones at targets in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Air Force reported on Monday.
“There have unfortunately been a number of drone strikes on civil infrastructure,” the air force said, without providing further details.
It said that 66 drones had been downed, a further 24 had been lost, and that four drones had turned away towards Russia and Belarus.
The Ukrainian military makes used of electronic means to disrupt the electronics of the drones alongside standard anti-aircraft fire.
According to the report, most of the drones were shot down around Kiev, Cherkasy to the south-east of Kiev and Khmelnytskyi to the south-west of Kiev.
Emergency power cuts occurred in the city of Konotop in the north-eastern Sumy region, and similar measures were taken in the neighbouring Poltava region to the south. Russian attacks are often directed at power supplies.
The Russian Defence Ministry also reported Ukrainian drone attacks, saying that 21 drones had been downed over four regions. Two people were injured in the southern Voronezh region, the report said.