Up to 8,000 North Korean troops are in Russia’s western Kursk region and will likely begin fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukrainian forces along the Russia–Ukraine border in the coming days, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Oct. 31.
The U.S. government has been monitoring what they believe to be a contingent of about 10,000 North Korean soldiers that arrived in Russia’s Far Eastern port city of Vladivostok in recent weeks and has since begun to move west toward the Ukrainian border.
Speaking alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts at a press conference in Washington on Thursday, Blinken said as many as 8,000 of the North Korean soldiers had already reached the Kursk region and could soon march in force on a swathe of territory that Ukrainian forces have held on the Russian side of the border since early August.
“We’ve not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces, but we would expect that to happen in the coming days,” Blinken said.
The U.S. Department of Defense previously assessed the North Korean troops would be employed primarily in an infantry role. Blinken, on Thursday, said these North Korean troops may also assist Russian forces with artillery and drone operations.
“Should these troops engage in combat, or combat support operations against Ukraine, they would become legitimate military targets,” Blinken said.