North Korean Troops Deserting Ukraine Frontline Days After Arrival: Report

Some 18 North Korean soldiers are believed to have deserted the Russian frontline, with Kremlin fighters reportedly searching for them.

The troops were deployed in Russia's Kursk and Bryansk oblasts, about four miles from the border with Ukraine, when they deserted, the public broadcasting company of Ukraine, Suspilne, reported.

Intelligence officials cited by the broadcaster said the Russian military is searching for the North Korean soldiers, while commanders are trying to conceal the desertion from their higher-ups.

It comes after reports that Moscow was planning to assemble a battalion of troops sent over by Kim Jong Un to help push Ukraine's forces out of Kursk.

Ukrainian outlet LIGA reported on October 16 that the soldiers would be involved in combat missions in the country's Southwestern regions, where Russia is still battling Ukraine's incursion.

North Korean soldiers were set to form a "special Buryat battalion," named after the Mongolic ethnic group indigenous to the region spanning Siberia as well as northern Mongolia and China, sources quoted by LIGA said.

South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), said that 12,000 North Korean troops had been deployed to Ukraine, as of October 18, according to Yonhap, a major South Korean news agency.

The NIS reportedly said it was confirming the "beginning of the North's direct involvement" in Russia's war in Ukraine.

It believes Pyongyang has been transporting special forces from October 8 to 13, with around 1,500 North Korean troops transported in the first phase.

They are believed to have been given Russian uniforms and weapons, as well as fake identifications to disguise them as locals.

ASTRA, a Russia-Ukraine war reporting Telegram channel, posted what it says is allegedly the first video of North Korean soldiers at one of Russia's military training grounds.

Ukrainian blogger Serhii Sternenko was one of several who posted similar clips on X, formerly Twitter.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense and North Korea's Mission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the United Nations Office, via email, for comment.

Pyongyang and Moscow have been developing their relationship for some time now, pledging earlier this year to provide aid to one another if attacked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years in June, when he and Kim signed a so-called "comprehensive strategic partnership pact" with a clause similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which states that an attack one member is an attack on all.

Should either country "get into a state of war due to an armed aggression" the other "shall immediately provide military and other assistance with all the means at its disposal," states the pact, published by North Korean state media.

Last week, South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said: "As Russia and North Korea have signed a mutual treaty akin to a military alliance, the possibility of such a deployment is highly likely."

He said recent reports about North Korean troop casualties, reported by Ukrainian media the week before, were likely to be true, while speaking to lawmakers during a parliamentary audit, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

The Kyiv Post and Interfax-Ukraine quoted intelligence sources saying six North Korean officers were killed on the Russian frontline near the Donetsk region in Ukraine on October 3.

Three more officers from North Korea were injured in the strike and were sent to Moscow to be treated, according to Russian Telegram channel Kremlin Snuffbox.

Last year, Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate, Kyiv's military intelligence arm, reported the arrival of some North Korean servicepeople, including engineering personnel, to the Russian-occupied territory near Donetsk.

Meanwhile, the Center of National Resistance—created by the Special Operations Forces of the Ukrainian military—reported in September 2023 that Russian President Vladimir Putin persuaded North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un to send North Korean citizens to the Russian-occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk for construction work.

North Korea has been a major ally of Russia in its ongoing war with Ukraine, which began when Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Kyiv in February 2022. The United States has accused North Korea of sending artillery to Russia throughout the war, which Moscow and Pyongyang have denied.

Update 10/18/24, 7:42 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.