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Significant number of North Korean troops headed to the frontline areas, including Kursk, says Seoul
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The Group of Seven has branded Russia’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops into its fight with Ukraine as a “desperate effort” to replenish Moscow’s own losses as Kyiv reports the first combat clashes with Pyongyang’s soldiers.
Kyiv confirmed on Monday that they had fired at North Korean soldiers in the Russian region of Kursk, which has been partly occupied by Ukraine since August.
Foreign ministers from the G7 described the deployment as a “dangerous expansion of the conflict”, with Monday’s clashes marking the first time a sovereign nation has officially engaged its forces in the conflict.
“The DPRK’s (North Korea) direct support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, besides showing Russia’s desperate efforts to compensate its losses, would mark a dangerous expansion of the conflict,” the ministers said in a statement, which was also signed by South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
The ministers said they condemned “in the strongest possible terms” increased military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, including Russia’s “unlawful procurement” of North Korean ballistic missiles.
They added they were deeply concerned about the potential for any transfer of nuclear or ballistic missile-related technology to North Korea.
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Russia’s top diplomat is hosting his North Korean counterpart for talks amid reports that Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its military in the war in Ukraine
An engineer at a factory that makes tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine was jailed for 16 years on Tuesday after being convicted of committing state treason by passing military secrets to Kyiv, weeks after his wife received a similar sentence.
The court in Sverdlovsk region said Danil Mukhametov, who worked at the Uralvagonzavod tank factory, had partially admitted his guilt after being accused of passing unspecified technical military information to Ukraine‘s intelligence services.
The court released a photograph of Mukhametov, 32, listening in a glass courtroom cage as the judge read out his sentence, which he will serve in a maximum-security penal colony.
His wife Viktoria, who worked at the same tank factory, Russia’s largest, was handed a 12-1/2 year sentence last month after being convicted of selling technical blueprints to Ukrainian officials for 100,000 roubles or just over $1,000.
She and her husband were arrested in March 2023 by the FSB security service, which published a video of the arrest. It showed her being asked what they planned to do with the money, to which she replied: “Just to live.”
Located in the city of Nizhny Tagil around 1,400 km (870 miles) east of Moscow, the Uralvagonzavod factory has been sanctioned by the West.
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