North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to fight in Ukraine, according to the Pentagon

BRUSSELS (AP) — North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in Ukraine within “the next few weeks,” the Pentagon said Monday, a move that Western leaders say they will take becomes intensify the almost three-year war And Shaken relations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, said Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh, and are probably on their way to the Kursk border region, where Russia was staying They are fighting to push back a Ukrainian invasion.

Earlier on Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed recent Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean military units were already in the Kursk region.

The deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers in Europe's biggest conflict since World War II will increase pressure on Ukraine's tired and overstretched army. It will also increase geopolitical tensions on the Korean peninsula and the broader Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking to reshape global power dynamics. He tried to create a counterweight to Western influence BRICS summitincluding the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week. According to Western governments, he has asked Iran, which has supplied drones, and North Korea, which has supplied large quantities of munitions, for direct aid in the war.

Rutte told reporters in Brussels that North Korea's deployment represented “a significant escalation” of Pyongyang's involvement in the conflict and “a dangerous expansion of the Russian war.”

President Joe Biden also described the operation as “dangerous.” Very dangerous.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with their South Korean counterparts in Washington later this week.

Singh said Austin and Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun would discuss the deployment of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine. There will be no restrictions on the use of US-provided weapons by these forces, Singh said.

“When we see DPRK troops advancing toward the front, they are co-belligerents in the war,” Singh said, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea. “This is a calculation that North Korea has to make.”

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ignored Rutte's comments, noting that Pyongyang and Moscow signed a joint security pact last June. He did not confirm that North Korean soldiers were in Russia.

Lavrov claimed that Western military trainers have long been secretly sent to Ukraine to help its military use long-range weapons from Western partners.

Ukraine, whose defenses in the eastern Donetsk region are under intense Russian pressure, could receive more grim news in next week's U.S. presidential election. A victory for Donald Trump could see critical U.S. military aid decline.

In Moscow, the Defense Ministry announced on Monday that Russian troops had captured the village of Tsukuryne in Donetsk – the latest settlement to fall victim to the slow Russian attack.

Rutte spoke in Brussels after a high-level South Korean delegation, including senior intelligence and military officials as well as senior diplomats, briefed the alliance's 32 national ambassadors at NATO headquarters.

Rutte said NATO was “actively consulting within the alliance, with Ukraine and with our Indo-Pacific partners” about the developments. He said he would soon speak with the South Korean president and the Ukrainian defense minister.

“We continue to monitor the situation closely,” he said. After the statement, he stopped taking questions.

The South Koreans showed no evidence of North Korean troops in Kursk, according to European officials who were present at the 90-minute exchange and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the security briefing.

It is unclear how and when NATO allies will respond to North Korea's involvement. For example, they could lift restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied weapons for long-range attacks on Russian soil.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed last Friday that North Korean troops were stationed, citing intelligence reports on the battlefield within a few days.

He previously said his government had information that around 10,000 troops from North Korea were being prepared to join Russian forces fighting against his country.

Days before Zelensky spoke, American and South Korean officials said there was evidence North Korea had sent troops to Russia.

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Copp reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine