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.
Pentagon: 10,000 North Korean soldiers
Around 10,000 North Korean soldiers are arriving in Russia, according to estimates by the US Department of Defense later on Monday.
Washington estimates that North Korea “has sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,” said Sabrina Singh, deputy spokeswoman for the Pentagon.
Some have already moved closer to Ukraine, she said, amid fears Pyongyang’s soldiers are to be sent to Kursk, near the Ukrainian border.
If North Korean soldiers are actually deployed on the battlefield, this would mean a further escalation and also shows “President Putin’s increasing desperation.” He has suffered “extraordinary casualties” on the battlefield, Singh said.
She called the step an “indication that Putin may be in more trouble than people realize.” Using North Koreans in Russia’s war would also have “serious implications for security in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region,” she said.
South Korea seeks further cooperation with Ukraine
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol plans to pursue further cooperation with Ukraine and a delegation from the Defence Ministry and intelligence services are set to visit the embattled nation later this week, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
The planned meetings are also due to focus on exchanging information about North Korean soldiers in Russia and exploring joint countermeasures.
Earlier, Yoon told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that “the actual deployment of North Korean troops to the front line in Ukraine could happen sooner than expected,” in a call.
South Korea’s intelligence service assumes that North Korea has already sent thousands of soldiers to Russia and plans to deploy a total of around 12,000 soldiers.
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.
Zelensky calls on Modi to help
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on India to do more to end the war in his country beyond merely saying it is against war, in an interview with the Times of India published on Monday.
“Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi can influence the end of the Ukraine war. This is the huge value of him in any conflict. This is the huge value of India,” Zelensky said.
India maintains close economic and military ties with Russia and has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.