Tension grows over North Korean troops in Russia; Putin confirms his presence
Juan Pablo Duch
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, October 26, 2024, p. 19
Moscow. The controversy caused by the reciprocal military assistance clause of the strategic partnership treaty between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) generated three pieces of news this Friday that, although they do not coincide and even seem to contradict each other, they could all be true.
The first, President Vladimir Putin, in statements to the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 television channel, confirmed what he declared to Russian reporters in Kazan on Thursday at the end of the BRICS+ Summit: there are North Korean soldiers on Russian territory, that its presence is based on international law and that Moscow and Pyongyang will decide for themselves how to apply article 4 of the treaty, relating to mutual assistance.
Putin responded in this way to a question that was based on the fact that satellite images showed North Korean soldiers in Vladivostok (Russian Far East). If those images show it, it is like thatsaid the Russian president and defended that it is a sovereign decision that doesn’t affect anyone.
The second news came from Pyong-yang: its Vice Foreign Minister, Kim Yong-gyu, neither confirmed nor denied the transfer of his nation’s military forces to Russia, but he stressed to the Korean Central Telegraph Agency (KCNA, for its acronym in English) that his nation He has every right to do so (move troops to Russia) by complying with the international legal standards that emanate from the treaty signed with Moscow.
Regarding the sending of our troops to Russia that has been reported in recent days by the world’s media, although the Foreign Ministry has no obligation to comment on what the Ministry of Defense is doing, we can say that if it happens, it corresponds to the international law. There are forces that want to present this as something illegalKim noted.
And the last, the president of Ukraine, Volodymir Zelensky, in a conversation with the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrskyi, insisted that his country’s military intelligence is aware that This weekend, no later than October 27 or 28, Russia will deploy North Korean soldiers to combat zoneswithout specifying how many or where.
The intention to extend the war
He added: The world can clearly see that Russia intends to continue the war. Therefore, world leaders must give a firm and forceful response..
Despite all this, and amid the numerous conflicting versions circulating, there is no certainty as to how many North Korean soldiers – 1,500, 3,000, 10,000, up to 12,000? – would already be in Russia. It is not even known if they are still in Vladivostok or have already moved to another place in Russian territory. Less can be said if Moscow and Pyongyang really plan to send these troops to the combat zone with the Ukrainian army, a possibility that the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, recently described as very very serious if it comes to fruition.
The most likely thing – analysts say – is that Moscow, Pyongyang and kyiv interpret reality in their own way: if the first two, exercising their right to deploy their troops within the territory internationally recognized as part of Russia, specifically in the Kursk region invaded by Ukraine, there would be nothing to object to, except for the blow to the Kremlin’s image that would mean having to resort to aid to North Korea to expel the enemy. But, if Russia places them in the four Ukrainian regions that it annexed, kyiv would be right to denounce that the North Korean military also invaded its territory.
Ukraine fears offensive
Furthermore, other experts do not exclude that kyiv is exaggerating the possible participation of North Korean soldiers in the war in Ukraine to overcome the doubts that the United States and its allies maintain about granting it authorization to attack Russian territory with long-range missiles.
Even the Federal Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, said this Friday that It is very worrying the issue of the North Korean militia in Russia and said that this shows despair of Putin, while the government of the Netherlands, through its Minister of Defense, Ruben Brekelmans, considered that This important escalation requires an appropriate response.
In this regard, while it is clarified how Moscow and Pyongyang decide to apply the reciprocal assistance clause, the following Monday, according to news agencies, a high-level delegation from South Korea will go to the headquarters of the North Atlantic alliance, in Brussels, to inform about the impact that Russia and the DPRK military cooperation has on the region.
