North Korean troops in Ukraine will ‘surely return in body bags’, US warns – live

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving towards Ukraine.

Mr Austin was speaking at a press conference in Washington with South Korean defence minister Kim Yong-hyun as concerns rise over North Koreans deployed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Some North Korean advance units have already arrived in the Kursk region, where Russia is fighting a Ukranian incursion, and Mr Austin said “the likelihood is pretty high” Moscow will use the troops in combat.

“This is something that we’re going to continue to watch, and we’re going to continue to work with our allies and partners to discourage Russia from employing these troops in combat,” Mr Austin said.

Mr Kim, speaking through an interpreter, said while he doesn’t necessarily believe the deployment will trigger war on the Korean Peninsula, it could increase security threats.

He said there is a “high possibility” that Pyongyang will ask Moscow for technological help to advance its tactical nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, in exchange for its troops.

The US and South Korea have called on North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia, as Robert Wood, US envoy to the UN, said any North Korean soldiers entering Ukraine would “surely return in body bags”.

The Pentagon has said that 10,000 North Korean troops have been deployed by Russia to the frontlines in its war on Ukraine.

“Should DPRK’s troops enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will surely return in body bags. So I would advise Chairman Kim to think twice about engaging in such reckless and dangerous behaviour,” said Mr Wood.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy to the UN, asked on Wednesday why North Korea could not help Moscow when Western countries claimed the right to help Ukraine.

Russia was accused at a Security Council meeting by the US, Britain, South Korea, Ukraine and their allies of violating UN resolutions and the founding UN Charter with the deployment of troops from North Korea, according to Reuters.

“Supporting an act of aggression, which completely violates the principles of the UN Charter, is illegal,” said South Korea’s UN ambassador Hwang Joonkook.

“Any activities that are entailed with the DPRK’s dispatch of troops to Russia are clear violations of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions.”Mr Nebenzia said Russia’s military agreement with North Korea did not violate international law.

“Even if everything that’s being said about the cooperation between Russia and North Korea by our Western colleagues is true, why is it that the United States and allies are trying to impose on everyone the flawed logic that they have the right to help the Zelensky regime … and Russian allies have no right to do a similar thing?” Mr Nebenzia asked.

The thousands of young soldiers North Korea has sent to Russia, reportedly to help fight against Ukraine, include many elite special forces, but that hasn’t stopped speculation they’ll be slaughtered because they have no combat experience, no familiarity with the terrain and will likely be dropped onto the most ferocious battlefields.

That may be true, and soon. Observers say some of the troops have already arrived at the front. From the North Korean perspective, however, these soldiers might not be as miserable as outsiders think. They may, in fact, view their Russian tour with pride and as a rare chance to make good money, see a foreign country for the first time and win preferred treatment for their families back home, according to former North Korean soldiers.

“They are too young and won’t understand exactly what it means. They’ll just consider it an honor to be selected as the ones to go to Russia among the many North Korean soldiers,” said Lee Woong-gil, a former member of the same special forces unit, the Storm Corps. He came to South Korea in 2007. “But I think most of them won’t likely come back home alive.”

Troop deployment is Kim’s ‘big gamble’

Worries about North Korea’s likely participation in the Russian-Ukraine war were highlighted this week when the Pentagon said North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia, and that they will likely fight against Ukraine “over the next several weeks.” South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been moved close to battlefronts in western Russia.

North Korea’s troop deployment could mark a serious escalation of the almost three-year war. It caught many outside observers by surprise because North Korea has its own security headache, a festering standoff with the United States and South Korea over its nuclear program.

Large North Korean troop casualties would be a major political blow for the country’s 40-year-old ruler, Kim Jong Un, whose government hasn’t formally confirmed the deployment. But experts say Kim may see this as a way to get much needed foreign currency and security support from Russia in return for joining Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“Kim Jong Un is taking a big gamble. If there are no large casualty numbers, he will get what he wants to some extent. But things will change a lot if many of his soldiers die in battle,” said Ahn Chan-il, a former North Korean army first lieutenant who is now head of the World Institute for North Korean Studies think tank in Seoul.

Ambassadors and defence attaches of NATO members based in Budapest met on Wednesday at the US embassy to discuss Hungary’s policy of “economic neutrality”, including its ties with Russia and China, the embassy said.

The meeting came a day before Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was due to speak at a security conference in the Belarusian capital Minsk, where other participants include Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been seeking to attract Chinese EV and battery manufacturing plants to Hungary, says his country, a member of NATO and the European Union, does not want to be squeezed into any bloc and wants to keep trading with Russia and China as well as its Western partners.

Orban, whose government has maintained close ties with Moscow during the war in Ukraine despite the EU trying to isolate Russia, has said Budapest will opt for a strategy of “economic neutrality”.

The US embassy said Wednesday’s meeting discussed “the security aspects” of this policy, with Ambassador David Pressman again criticising the Hungarian government’s ties with Russia and China.

“Hungary’s newly announced policy of economic neutrality and its growing dependencies on Moscow and Beijing have security implications for the United States and Euro-Atlantic interests. We appreciated the opportunity to discuss Hungary’s new policy with our Allies,” Pressman said according to a statement.

Orban’s chief of staff told a briefing in response to the ambassador’s comments that he suggested Pressman “study the U.S.-China trade volumes as those have been growing massively”.

The European Commission on Wednesday told Georgia that it will not be able to recommend opening European Union membership talks with the country unless it changes course, while praising Ukraine and Moldova’s efforts to implement reforms in a challenging environment.

Georgia’s governing party, seen by many western governments as increasingly Moscow-friendly, won a parliamentary election on Saturday that was marred by reports of voting violations, as Moldova prepares for a presidential runoff election on Sunday that pits a pro-Western incumbent against a candidate backed by a traditionally pro-Russian party.

In an annual report on the bloc’s enlargement policy, the Commission reiterated that Georgia’s accession process has de facto been halted due to factors such as legislation that requires organisations receiving more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence and “strong anti-EU narratives.”

Pointing to international observers’ reports of voter intimidation and procedural inconsistencies in Georgia’s election, the Commission said there is a need for electoral reform and that “constructive and inclusive dialogue across the political spectrum is now paramount”.

“The EU remains committed to further deepen the partnership,” the report said, warning that “unless Georgia reverts the current course of action the Commission will not be in a position to consider recommending opening negotiations with Georgia.”

The report pointed to progress in Ukraine and Moldova, which began accession talks with the EU earlier this year, noting however that more work needs to be done.

“Despite progress on fundamental reforms, further efforts are needed,” the Commission said, regarding Ukraine’s process.

In Moldova, the Commission said additional efforts are necessary to implement a ‘deoligarchisation’ plan.

The Commission said it is “looking forward to the opening of negotiations on clusters, starting with the fundamentals, as soon as possible in 2025” for both countries if conditions are met.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a Russian-led post-Soviet military bloc, plans to hold exercises in Belarus in September 2025, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

Prosecutors plan to argue that a Massachusetts Air National Guard member who pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine should serve nearly 17 years in prison.

In a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, prosecutors said Jack Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”.

“As both a member of the United States Armed Forces and a clearance holder, the defendant took an oath to defend the United States and to protect its secrets — secrets that are vital to US national security and the physical safety of Americans serving overseas,” prosecutors wrote. “Teixeira violated his oath, almost every day, for over a year.”

Teixeira’s attorneys will argue that US District Judge Indira Talwani should sentence him to 11 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced 12 November.

In their sentencing memorandum, they acknowledged that their client “made a terrible decision which he repeated over 14 months.”

“It’s a crime that deserves serious consequences,” the attorneys wrote. “Jack has thoroughly accepted responsibility for the wrongfulness of his actions and stands ready to accept whatever punishment must now be imposed.”

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in March to six counts of the willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act nearly a year after he was arrested in the most consequential national security leak in years.

The 22-year-old admitted that he illegally collected some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and shared them with other users on the social media platform Discord.

The head of a special commission investigating Russian and Belarusian influences in Poland has said that it will refer to prosecutors a former defence minister whose decisions it said impaired Poland’s defences ahead of Russia’s 2022 war on Ukraine.

The commission was launched in May by the pro-European Union government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk to investigate cases of Russia and Belarus exerting influence on Poland’s politics since 2004.

Tusk and other officials say Poland, a key ally of Ukraine, is facing intensified hybrid attacks from Russia and its neighbor and ally Belarus that include acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and growing migrant pressure along the Poland-Belarus border.

Poland’s previous government was in the hands of the conservative Law and Justice party, which put Poland at odds with the EU, chiefly over changes to the country’s justice system and rule-of-law principles. The current administration has been taking steps to hold officials of the previous government accountable for what it says are serious irregularities.

On Wednesday, Gen. Jaroslaw Stróżyk, head of the commission and the Military Counterintelligence Service, presented the first unclassified conclusions that saw some of the former government’s decisions as potentially hurting Poland’s interests.

He said that some of the documents the commission has reviewed suggest the existence of “direct influence” by Russia, without providing further details. He said many of the documents remain classified.

Stróżyk said that Antoni Macierewicz, defence minister in 2015-18, without any analysis or consultation, cancelled plans to purchase seven tanker aircraft for Poland’s F-16 jet fighters, thus reducing their airborne time and defense capabilities.

The commission said the decision was dictated by Macierewicz’s “personal aversion to partners in the EU” and called it a “diplomatic treason.” Stróżyk said the commission will refer the former defence minister to prosecutors, who will decide whether to take further action.

The commission also blamed Macierewicz for hurting operations handled by Poland’s special services and intelligence by closing 10 of their 15 regional bureaus in 2017.

Stróżyk said the commission found no signs that the previous government held any debates or took any pro-defence decisions in response to US warnings that Russia was preparing to attack neighboring Ukraine.

Macierewicz on Wednesday dismissed the report, calling it “absurd”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the next meeting of the Ramstein group that coordinates military support for Ukraine should be held in the coming weeks.

Initially scheduled for October, the highest level meeting to date of the Ramstein group was postponed after US President Joe Biden cancelled his trip to Germany because of hurricane in his country.

“We are also already seeing the contours of the Ramstein meeting, which should take place in the coming weeks,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address on Wednesday.