U.S. Says North Korean Troops Ready for Ukraine Combat as Missile Raises Tensions

The United States said Thursday that up to 8,000 North Korean troops person reached Russia's borderline portion with Ukraine acceptable for combat, aft Pyongyang's firing of a long-range rocket ramped up tensions days earlier the U.S. election.

Seeking vantage successful his grinding penetration of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has brought successful troops from North Korea, the archetypal clip Russia has invited overseas forces connected its ungraded successful much than a century.

Citing U.S. intelligence, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that immoderate 8,000 of the 10,000 North Korean troops believed to beryllium successful Russia person made their mode to the Kursk borderline region.

"We've not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces, but we would expect that to hap successful the coming days," Blinken told a quality league aft four-way talks with the South Korean overseas and defence ministers.

Russia has been grooming North Korean troops successful artillery, drones, basal artillery operations and trench clearing, "indicating that they afloat mean to usage these forces successful frontline operations," Blinken said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that North Korean troops were being supplied with Russian uniforms.

"Make nary mistake, if these North Korean troops prosecute successful combat oregon combat enactment operations against Ukraine, they would marque themselves morganatic subject targets," Austin said.

Austin said the United States was besides preparing a caller bundle of subject enactment to Ukraine successful airy of the North Korean troops' arrival.

Advance connected rocket technology

South Korea, which antecedently said that the North was preparing a rocket oregon adjacent atomic trial up of U.S. elections connected Tuesday, said Pyongyang appeared to person fired a solid-propelled long-range ballistic rocket connected Thursday.

It flew 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) aft being fired connected a lofted trajectory — meaning up, not out, the South Korean subject said.

Developing precocious solid-fuel missiles — which are quicker to motorboat and harder to observe and destruct successful beforehand — has agelong been a extremity for North Korean person Kim Jong Un.

Kim called the sanctions-defying motorboat "an due subject enactment that afloat meets the intent of informing the rivals... of our counteraction will," according to the authoritative Korean Central News Agency.

The trial "updated the caller records of the strategical rocket capability," of North Korea, the bureau said, with Kim vowing his state "will ne'er alteration its enactment of bolstering up its atomic forces."

Japan said that the "ICBM-class" rocket had flown for longer than immoderate different 1 antecedently tested by the North, staying airborne for astir 86 minutes and hitting altitudes of 7,000 kilometers.

Blinken and his South Korean and Japanese counterparts discussed the motorboat successful a associated telephone call, issuing a connection afterward urging North Korea to extremity its "provocative and destabilizing actions."

The rocket could successful mentation onslaught the mainland United States, though Washington said determination was nary contiguous hazard from the test-firing.

China, historically North Korea's closest ally, said it was "concerned astir developments connected the (Korean) peninsula" and urged a "political resolution" to the issue.

Ukraine outrage 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking to South Korean media, denounced what helium called inaction by his allies and said helium was amazed by the "silence" of China connected the North Korean unit deployment.

"I deliberation that the absorption to this is nothing; it has been zero," Zelensky said.

South Korea has said it is reviewing whether to nonstop weapons straight to Ukraine successful response, an thought it has antecedently resisted owed to longstanding home argumentation that prevents it from sending weaponry into progressive conflicts.

North Korea's rocket motorboat "seems to person been carried retired to divert attraction from planetary disapproval of its unit deployment," said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies successful Seoul.

Seoul has warned that Russia whitethorn beryllium providing caller exertion oregon expertise to Pyongyang successful instrumentality for weapons and troops to assistance them combat Ukraine.

It is imaginable "Russia really provided caller exertion for reentering the atmosphere," said Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies.

But it is much apt that Thursday's trial was a bid to distract from the unit deployment and get "the world's attraction up of the U.S. statesmanlike election," Ahn added.

Vice President Kamala Harris successful a run rally Tuesday charged that Kim and Putin "are rooting" for her rival Donald Trump arsenic helium is "easy to manipulate with flattery and favor."

President Trump met 3 times with Kim, unusually idiosyncratic diplomacy that reduced tensions but did not output a lasting agreement.

North Korea has denied sending troops to Russia, but successful the archetypal remark successful authorities media past week, its vice overseas curate said that if specified a deployment were to happen, it would beryllium successful enactment with planetary law.