The Pentagon warns that 10,000 North Korean troops are now in Russia and could fight on the front lines.

The Pentagon says North Korea has sent 10,000 troops to Russia, some of them heading to the front lines, and that the move has serious implications for the conflict and the rest of the European continent.

“We believe North Korea has sent a total of approximately 10,000 troops to train in eastern Russia, which will likely increase Russian forces near Ukraine over the next few weeks,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Monday, using the acronym repressive authoritarian state.

The news came a few days after South Korean officials told US lawmakers that 3,000 North Korean troops were heading to Ukraine, and the Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters about this. During a visit to Rome, he said “we see evidence of North Korean troops” traveling to Russia, but did not provide a total figure.

The Pentagon’s assessment came on the same day that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also published a statement Confirming the presence of North Korean troops in the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Rutte said the move was not only a “significant escalation of North Korea’s ongoing involvement in Russia’s illegal war,” it also violated UN security resolutions and represented a “dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”

Relations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have deepened over the past year. North Korea has already supplied Russia with millions of ammunition and ballistic missiles even before North Korean soldiers set foot on Russian soil.

In exchange for troops that will help Putin compensate for the more than half a million Russian dead and wounded he has suffered since the conflict began, Russia is offering North Korea “military technology and other support to circumvent international sanctions,” the NATO chief said. “

“Putin has failed to achieve his strategic goals, and in the end it shows… the Secretary of State uses this phrase… he is pushing North Korea and Iran because he has failed to achieve those goals. targets on the battlefield,” Singh said, referring to Defense Secretary Austin.

Singh told reporters that the Pentagon believes most of the 10,000 troops will train in eastern Russia, but some have already moved closer to Ukraine and officials are “increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat.” or to support combat operations against Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region of Russia, near the border with Ukraine.”

Russia’s Kursk region was captured by Ukrainian forces in August, and they have held various territories since then. While the seizure of Russian territory was seen as a major, if unexpected, tactical victory for the Ukrainians, it raised questions about what role, if any, it played in the broader military strategy beyond embarrassing Putin.

Ukrainian officials say the goal was to create a buffer zone between them and Russian forces, and Singh told reporters that Austin had been told as recently as this weekend that they intended to hold the area. However, Austin also warned his Ukrainian counterparts that “there is still significant fighting in the east,” referring to the disputed territories of Donetsk and Lugansk.

While Singh echoed NATO concerns that North Korea’s large-scale addition of troops to the conflict has “broad implications for Europe and security in the Indo-Pacific region,” she said the U.S. would not pressure the Ukrainians to treat them differently, in at one point calling North Korean troops “colleagues in the war.”

“This is the calculation that North Korea has to make: They send their soldiers to a war where we see Russian casualties at this point exceeding 500,000,” she said.

“If they are engaged in combat… they are fighting Ukrainians who are fighting for their sovereign territory, and we have made a commitment to Ukraine that we will continue to support them, no matter the cost,” Singh said. said.

Connected: Zelensky said that North Korean troops will be deployed by Russia in the coming days