North Korean troops in Ukraine would be a major escalation, warns NATO chief

South Korea claims North sent 1,500 soldiers to Russia and plans to send more

North Korean troops joining Russia in Ukraine “would mark a significant escalation,” the NATO secretary-general said Monday.

Mark Rutte said on X that he spoke with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol about the NATO-Seoul partnership, “defence industrial cooperation, and the interconnected security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.”

"#NorthKorea sending troops to fight alongside #Russia in #Ukraine would mark a significant escalation,” Rutte added.

South Korea on Friday claimed that the North had sent 1,500 soldiers to Russia aboard navy ships on Oct. 8-13, to support Moscow's ongoing war against Ukraine.

Pyongyang is planning to send around 10,000 troops to Russia, the National Intelligence Service said, according to the Yonhap News.

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also claimed that Russia was preparing to deploy 10,000 North Korean soldiers in the fight against Kyiv.