The Kyiv Post and Interfax-Ukraine this week quoted intelligence sources saying six North Korean officers were killed on the Russian frontline near the Donetsk region in Ukraine on October 3.
While they haven’t corroborated them, US and NATO officials said they have no reason to believe the reports are not true. The US has obtained some intelligence that could eventually help them make a clear determination, the Wall Street Journal reported.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte greets Australia’s Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy in Brussels.
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 NATO, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
The talks in Brussels come as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off better-equipped Russian forces, especially in the eastern Donetsk region where they are gradually being pushed back. Kyiv is surviving with Western help, but Ukraine says it is coming too slowly.
Rutte said Zelensky could rest “absolutely assured” that the 32-member alliance was united in making sure that, collectively, they would do “whatever is needed to make sure that Ukraine can prevail”.
“Putin will not get his way,” he said while reiterating that Ukraine’s place was among NATO’s ranks, without saying when it might join officially.
He said the war in Ukraine had shown that instability in Europe could have far-reaching consequences around the world.
“Countries thousands of miles away – as far away as Iran, China and even North Korea – can become security spoilers in our own backyard,” he said. “Our world is closely linked – and so is our security.”
Australia’s Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, who formally announced the government was gifting 49 retiring M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv while in Brussels, said the action was not just about supporting Ukraine, but about the signal it sent to the rest of the world.
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“What happens in Europe affects us in the Indo-Pacific, and what happens in Indo-Pacific affects those in Europe,” he said. “Everything is linked nowadays, and we need to protect the rules-based global order and deter coercion and aggression.”
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