WASHINGTON – Ukrainian spies say they have intercepted phone calls that indicate Russia is working to incorporate North Korean forces into its military operations.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service said some of the calls were intercepted from forces defending Russia’s Kursk region on Ukraine’s northern border, whose territory was captured by Ukrainian forces in August.
The spy agency said it learned from phone calls that the Russian military assigned one interpreter and three Russian soldiers to every 30 North Korean soldiers.
But 979 days after the invasion of Moscow, Russian soldiers responding to intercepted calls are asking whether there are enough commanders to lead new troops or enough weapons and ammunition to arm them. He seemed to have doubts.
In one call that intelligence agencies said was recorded inside Kursk, a Russian soldier was “furious” at a commander who had ordered his troops to provide newly arrived North Korean troops with Russian armored vehicles that were already in short supply. did.
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“I want to kill him today. Yes, after the Koreans,” one of the soldiers said, according to the audio.
In another call, a soldier complained of a lack of interpreters. “We are now working like translators,” he said.
In the expletive-laced audio, another soldier roughly called the troops “Chinese.”
The agency said it also found that Russian police stopped a truck full of North Korean soldiers headed for Kursk on Sunday because the driver had not received “combat orders.”
This came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with South Korean President Yun Seok-yew to strengthen ties and share information about about 12,000 North Korean troops, who he said would be moved to Russian military bases. .
In a post on X, he said that Ukraine and South Korea were planning an “exchange of delegations.”
Meanwhile, Russian state media reported that North Korea’s foreign minister has arrived in eastern Russia and is scheduled to travel to Moscow for a second visit within six weeks, while the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with the foreign minister. He announced that he has no plans.
The Pentagon announced Monday that about 10,000 North Korean troops are currently stationed in military outposts in eastern Russia and could be sent to Kursk in the coming weeks. This is up from an estimated 3,000 people last week.
“We believe Russia may intend to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, near the Ukrainian border,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday. There are growing concerns.”
Contributed by: Reuters
