As allegations surface that North Korea is dispatching troops to support Russia in the war against Ukraine, North Korea’s representative to the United Nations (UN) has officially denied these claims, dismissing them as “baseless rumors.”
During a meeting of the UN First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in New York on Monday, the North Korean representative responded to accusations by Ukraine’s delegation. The Ukrainian representative had claimed that North Korea was not only supplying weapons to Russia but was also preparing to deploy a large number of troops. The North Korean envoy refuted the accusations: “As for the so-called military cooperation with Russia, my delegation does not feel any need for comment on such groundless stereotyped rumors aimed at smearing the image of the DPRK and undermining the legitimate, friendly, and cooperative relations between two sovereign states.”
This marked the first time North Korea officially responded to the rumors of troop deployment to Russia, drawing significant international attention.
On the same day, the Ukrainian representative stated that their intelligence indicates North Korea is expected to deploy approximately 11,000 regular troops alongside Russian forces to fight against the Ukrainian army in the near future. These claims suggest that additional troop deployments from North Korea are imminent.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, also rejected these claims, calling them “absurd” during a UN Security Council meeting. He criticized the West for focusing on these rumors while ignoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s earlier comments about the potential development of nuclear weapons. South Korean Ambassador Hwang Jun Kook added, “North Korea has repeatedly violated international norms and Security Council resolutions, but their military dispatch has shocked even us,” urging North Korea to cease military cooperation with Russia.
These statements come after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced on Friday that North Korea had decided to deploy a special forces unit to assist Russia in its war effort. The NIS claimed that some North Korean troops had already moved to Russia, and Ukraine’s Strategic Communications and Information Security Center shared footage purportedly showing North Korean soldiers receiving Russian military equipment.
Despite these reports, the U.S. and other Western nations remain cautious in confirming the claims. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood remarked during the Security Council meeting, “If true, this marks a dangerous and highly concerning development and an obvious deepening of the DPRK-Russia military relationship.”
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