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Footage circulated online on Oct 18, 2024 shows North Korean troops training in Russia.
North Korean troops expected to engage Ukrainians within days as allies flounder
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says North Korean soldiers are expected to deploy in combat against Ukrainians in the coming days, while American Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood said 8,000 of Pyongyang’s soldiers are in the Kursk region, which Ukraine has partially occupied.
Blinken spoke after meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Cho Tae-yeol, and Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as Washington and Seoul attempt to coordinate a response to Pyongyang’s provocations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed deep disappointment in the thus-far anemic response from allies in an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, saying Moscow and Pyongyang would press the envelope further. “If there is nothing — and I think that the reaction to this is nothing, it has been zero — then the number of North Korean troops on our border will be increased,” he said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had expressed hope of sending weapons and advisers directly to Ukraine, but he’s hemmed in by constitutional restrictions and political realities he can’t overcome, as GZERO previously reported.
“South Korea and the West are grasping at straws to generate a significant response because there is widespread alarm and recognition that we have entered uncharted waters,” said Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan. “But North Korea will continue to get away with this because there aren’t a whole lot of good options.”
With the US election just days away, and the opposition that controls the legislature in Seoul deeply opposed to taking steps that could anger North Korea, we’re watching for more troops, more missiles, and deepening Pyongyang-Moscow ties before anyone in Seoul, Washington, or Beijing pushes back hard.
Commander Shingo Nashinoki, 50, and soldiers of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), Japan's first marine unit since World War Two, take part in a military drill as U.S. Marines observe, on the uninhabited Irisuna island close to Okinawa, Japan, November 15, 2023.
Japanese troops in the Philippines?
Before an historic trilateral meeting on April 12 between US President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Philippine ambassador to the US has said Tokyo and Manila are negotiating a “reciprocal access agreement” that would allow the Japanese and Philippine militaries to train and conduct joint exercises on each other’s territory. Given the ugly World War II history between the two countries, that would be a startling development.
Japan’s foreign ministry has cast doubt on the specifics of this plan. It’s true, said a spokesperson, that the “implementation of this agreement will enhance the interoperability of the Japanese and Philippine] troops, but it is not true that we are discussing deploying the Self-Defense Forces in the Philippines,” he added.
It’s not clear, however, whether a temporary placement of Japanese troops in the Philippines to take part in joint exercises with US forces stationed there would create the same controversy inside Japan, where pacifism remains a potent political force, as a more permanent rotation of Japanese forces there.
But it is clear that the US, Japan, and the Philippines want Beijing to recognize their concerns over assertive Chinese actions in the South China Sea.