North Korea plans to send military construction workers and deminers to Russia

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea volition nonstop thousands of subject operation workers and deminers to enactment reconstruction enactment successful Russia’s Kursk region, a apical Russian authoritative said Tuesday, the latest motion of expanding cooperation betwixt the nations.

North Korea has already supplied thousands of combat troops and a immense magnitude of accepted weapons to backmost Russia’s warfare against Ukraine. In April, Pyongyang and Moscow said that their soldiers fought unneurotic to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk borderline region, though Ukraine has insisted it inactive has troops contiguous there.

Wrapping up a one-day sojourn to Pyongyang, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said that North Korean person Kim Jong Un decided to nonstop 1,000 sappers to wide mines successful the Kursk portion and 5,000 subject operation workers to reconstruct infrastructure there, according to Russia's authorities quality agency, Tass.

Another Russian authorities quality agency, RIA Novosti, carried a akin report.

“Following the expulsion of invaders from Russian soil, we’ve agreed to proceed our constructive cooperation, with the Korean broadside providing assistance successful the restoration of the Kursk region,” Shoigu said, according to RIA Novosti. "This is simply a benignant of brotherly assistance being sent by the Korean radical and their leader, Kim Jong Un, to our country.”

Shoigu said that Moscow and Pyongyang agreed to erect memorials successful some countries successful grant of North Korean soldiers who died portion warring successful the Kursk region, according to Tass and RIA Novosti.

North Korea's authoritative Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday that Kim confirmed the contents of North Korea’s practice with Russia with respect to Kursk’s existent concern but didn't notation the dispatch of service operation workers and deminers cited by Russian media.

KCNA quoted Kim arsenic expressing his resoluteness to “invariably and unconditionally support” what helium called Russian efforts to support its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Kim has antecedently made akin comments successful enactment of Russia's warfare connected Ukraine.

KCNA besides said that Kim and Shoigu approved immoderate plans for “conveying agelong the heroic feats displayed by” North Korean troops successful operations to liberate the Kursk area, an evident notation to the memorial operation plan.

North Korea and Russia person ne'er disclosed however galore North Korean troops person been sent to Russia oregon however galore of them were killed. But according to South Korean, U.S. and Ukraine assessments, astir 15,000 North Korean soldiers person been deployed to Russia. South Korea's spy bureau said successful April that astir 600 North Korean soldiers died connected the Russia-Ukraine battlefronts.

The deepening ties betwixt North Korea and Russia person raised worries among the U.S., South Korea and their partners that Russian President Vladimir Putin whitethorn successful instrumentality supply Kim with much-needed blase technologies that tin assistance beforehand his atomic and rocket programs.

The 2 countries, some successful confrontations with the U.S. and its allies, person sharply grown person to each different successful caller years. In 2024, Kim and Putin signed a landmark defense treaty that requires each broadside to supply assistance if the different is attacked.

It was Shoigu’s 3rd sojourn to North Korea successful astir 3 months. The 2 countries person exchanged high-level visits successful past years, with Kim travelling to Russia successful 2023 and Putin to North Korea successful 2024. Many observers accidental Kim could soon sojourn Russia again for different acme with Putin.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry connected Thursday expressed “grave concern” implicit what it described arsenic ongoing illicit practice betwixt North Korea and Russia.

The U.S. State Department told South Korea’s Yonhap quality bureau that Russia’s continued usage of North Korean workers and soldiers were “deeply concerning” and stated that Pyongyang was “now relying connected Russia to supply it with desperately needed funds successful speech for labour and worker for prosecute schemes." Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba besides expressed heavy concern, saying advancing practice betwixt Russia and North Korea threatens to jeopardize planetary security.

In South Korea, determination are worries that the 2024 North Korea-Russia defence pact would pb to Russia intervening successful a imaginable struggle connected the Korean Peninsula. Experts accidental North Korea's subject would besides get invaluable combat experiences from the Russia-Ukraine war.

South Korea, the U.S. and others person stated the ongoing North Korean-Russia subject practice impact elements that represent wide violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, which prohibition immoderate weapons transportation involving North Korea and required subordinate states not to contented enactment permits to North Koreans.

In its closed-door briefing to lawmakers connected April 30, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said that Russia had fixed North Korea air defence missiles, physics warfare equipment, drones and exertion for spy outer launches. The NIS said that 15,000 North Korean laborers person besides been sent to Russia nether bilateral concern practice programs, according to lawmakers who attended the briefing.

___

Katie Marie Davies reported from Manchester, England. Dasha Litvinova contributed to this study from Tallinn, Estonia. ___

Follow the AP’s sum of the Russia-Ukraine warfare astatine https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine