NATO, South Korea react to North Korea’s military deployment in Ukraine

North Korea sending soldiers to provide support to Russia in Ukraine would be “a significant escalation”, NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday.

Rutte said he spoke to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol about the Alliance’s “close partnership with Seoul”.

“North Korea sending troops to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine would mark a significant escalation,” he added in a post on X.

South Korea summons the Russian Ambassador over North Korea’s military deployment in Ukraine

South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul Monday to criticise Pyongyang’s decision to send thousands of soldiers to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said, calling for their immediate withdrawal.

About 1,500 North Korean special forces soldiers are already in Russia acclimatising, likely to head to the front lines soon, Seoul’s spy agency said Friday, with additional troops set to depart soon, Pyongyang’s first such deployment overseas.

South Korea, which has long claimed the nuclear-armed North is supplying Russia with weaponry for use in Ukraine, has expressed alarm over the deployment, which comes after Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a military deal in June.

Vice foreign minister Kim Hong-kyun expressed Seoul’s “grave concerns regarding North Korea’s recent dispatch of troops to Russia and strongly urged the immediate withdrawal of North Korean forces and the cessation of related cooperation,” the ministry said in a statement.

Kim told the Russian ambassador to South Korea, Georgiy Zinoviev, that North Korea supplying Russia with weaponry and troops for the war in Ukraine “poses a significant security threat not only to South Korea but to the international community.”

He also “emphasised that such actions violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions and the UN Charter.”