North Korean troops in Ukraine war called ‘huge’ escalation risk

North Korea sending troops to help Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine would represent a “huge” escalation risk, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Saturday.

Such a development would “push the conflict into a new stage, an additional escalatory stage,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot added at a joint press conference with Sybiha in Kyiv.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused North Korea this week of preparing to send soldiers to help Moscow’s war effort against Ukraine. South Korea has warned about Pyongyang’s increasing involvement in the Kremlin’s war and Seoul’s National Intelligence Service said on Friday that North Korea had already deployed 1,500 special forces troops to Russia.

Both the Kremlin and Pyongyang deny they have engaged in military transfers. And NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Friday that he could not “confirm reports that North Koreans are actively now as soldiers engaged in the war effort.”

But Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last summer signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty that commits both countries to provide military assistance to each other if either is attacked. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned on Friday that Pyongyang’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict would pose a “grave security threat” to the world. 

“This is a huge threat of further escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Sybiha said on Saturday, Reuters reported. “There is a big risk of it growing out of its current scale and borders,” he said.

France’s Barrot said such a move would signal that Moscow was struggling in the war. But “it would be serious and push the conflict into a new stage, an additional escalatory stage,” Barrot said.

Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine on Friday carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war, with the countries repatriating 95 prisoners each. The United Arab Emirates facilitated the agreement, serving as a mediator.

“Each time Ukraine rescues its people from Russian captivity, we bring closer the day when freedom will be returned to all those still held in Russian captivity,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.