Putin doesn't deny North Korean troop presence, but says NATO escalated first

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny evidence recently presented by the United States that North Korea had sent troops to Russia but also accused NATO of escalating the war in Ukraine first at a press conference on Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a press conference on the sidelines of the 2024 BRICS Summit in Kazan, western Russia, on Thursday. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny evidence recently presented by the United States that North Korea had sent troops to Russia but also accused NATO of escalating the war in Ukraine first on Thursday.

The Russian president made the remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, western Russia.

In his response to a question from a reporter about satellite images showing North Korean troop movements, Putin said, “Images are a serious thing. If there are images, then they reflect something.”

Through his comments, the Russian president appeared to suggest images of North Korean soldiers captured by satellite reconnaissance reflected a changing reality in terms of forces on the ground.

However, Putin also pointed to the presence of NATO officers and instructors in Ukraine to support his claim that it was the West that had escalated the war. “We know who is present there, from which European NATO countries, and how they carry out this work,” Putin said.

The Russian president also argued that what Pyongyang and Moscow “do within the framework” of Article 4 of Russia's recent treaty with North Korea — which promises mutual defense if one side is attacked — is “our business.”

South Korean intelligence believes at least 3,000 North Korean troops are already undergoing training in eastern Russia, while Ukrainian officials have said North Korean soldiers are already in the Kursk region in western Russia, which borders Ukraine.

The Kursk region is also where Ukraine launched a surprise attack, which observers believe is intended to force Russia to divert some of its soldiers who are already engaged in combat in Ukraine.

Putin, who told reporters that the Russian military is advancing across the entire front, said he would only be ready to consider ending the war “based on the realities that are taking shape on the ground” and is “not ready for anything else.”

His view of how the war will end struck a stark contrast with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who presented a “victory plan” to Western leaders last week which he said would force Moscow to withdraw by striking deeper within Russian territory using Western-supplied weapons.

Russia currently controls about one-fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea — which Moscow annexed in 2014 but is still considered by most countries to belong to Kyiv — as well as most of the Donbas region and over 70 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Meanwhile, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said Friday that Tokyo is following signs that North Korean soldiers are in Russia with “serious concern.”

According to Hayashi, military cooperation between Russia and the North “not only invites further deterioration of the situation in Ukraine, but is seriously worrisome also from the perspective of its impact on the security of the region surrounding Japan.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]