South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday that his government is preparing “countermeasures” in response to evidence of a growing North Korean presence in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, demanding of his Cabinet a “heightened sense of vigilance.”
He made the comments after holding a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on Tuesday in which the Ukrainian leader said the two agreed to “intensify contacts at all levels” and cooperate to limit North Korean influence in the war.
Yoon, a conservative, has spent much of the year warning the European Union and NATO of the blossoming diplomatic relationship between communist North Korea and Russia, suggesting this summer that North Korea posed a global threat, not just a regional one in east Asia.
“Military co-operation between Russia and North Korea poses a distinct threat and grave challenge to the peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in Europe,” Yoon told Reuters in July. “North Korea is clearly a menace to the international society. I hope that Russia will sensibly decide which side – the South or the North – is more important and necessary for its own interests.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has undertaken a foreign policy that has distanced Pyongyang from its traditional colonial authority, communist China, and forged closer ties to Russia. That policy yielded a major win for Kim in June when strongman Vladimir Putin agreed to sign a mutual defense agreement with North Korea – a deal that many believe prompted the deployment of potentially thousands of North Korean troops to Europe.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) said on Tuesday that it estimates North Korea has deployed 3,000 soldiers to Russia for training and fighting in Ukraine. The agency also reportedly predicted that Russia would send North Korean generals into battlefield zones in Ukraine in the near future.
“This illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a significant security threat to the international community and could pose a serious risk to our national security,” Yoon said. “With the war in Ukraine going on for three years, North Korea has deployed troops to Russia beyond providing weapons.”
“We must thoroughly assess all possibilities and prepare countermeasures. I urge everyone to engage in risk management with a heightened sense of vigilance,” the president told his cabinet, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.
Yoon added that any response to North Korea’s reported escalations in Ukraine must not hurt the South Korean economy with “issues like supply chains, oil prices, and exchange rates.”
In his phone call with Zelensky, Yoon described North Korea’s activities in Europe as “unprecedented and dangerous,” referring to the troops deployed in Russia as “special forces.” Zelensky published a statement on social media Tuesday in which he said he and Yoon agreed to “strengthen intelligence and expertise exchange, intensify contacts at all levels, especially the highest … to engage our mutual partners in cooperation.”
“As part of this agreement, Ukraine and the Republic of Korea will soon exchange delegations to coordinate actions. Finally, I invited South Korea to join the G7 Vilnius Declaration on bilateral security guarantees in support of Ukraine,” Zelensky announced.
The Ukrainian president said he told Yoon that Ukraine expects North Korean soldiers to total 12,000 in the near future, warning, “this war is becoming internationalized, extending beyond two countries.”
In addition to North Korea, reports have circulated throughout the year that the Russian military is using young men from impoverished countries such as India, Cuba, and Zambia as cannon fodder in the Ukraine invasion. Some of the families of the men involved reported their loved ones answering Facebook ads offering construction or other civilian jobs, sometimes in Ukraine and sometimes in unrelated countries in the Middle East. These situations differ from that of North Korea, however, as evidence suggests Kim is intentionally deploying trained soldiers to Ukraine, rather than allowing North Korean civilian men to be tricked into serving the Russian military. North Korea is also a known nuclear-armed state, albeit illegally, creating a greater risk of uncontrolled conflict.
The Ukrainian military also has an international legion fighting against Russia, but this again consists of individual soldiers from around the world rather than an official deployment from any partner state.
Yoon’s office issued a readout of the call with Zelensky that also noted the two “condemned the illegal military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, including arms transfers and troop deployments, in the strongest terms and agreed to pursue strategic consultations for a joint response.”
The phone call occurred as the North Korean regime confirmed via its state media that Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui was traveling to Russia this week. Yonhap reported that international observers expect Choe to work on logistics for a potential visit to Russia by Kim in the near future. Kim and Putin last met in Pyongyang in June, where they signed their mutual defense agreement.
“It’s difficult to speculate since North Korea has not clarified the agenda, but we anticipate possible coordination on specific responses to the troop deployment to Russia,” an anonymous South Korean Unification Ministry official told Yonhap.
The Russian news agency Tass reported Tuesday that Putin has no plans to meet with Choe while in Moscow.
