U.S. “seeing evidence” of North Korean troops in Russia as Ukraine war rages, Defense chief Lloyd Austin says

Washington — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the U.S. was “seeing evidence that there are North Korean troops in Russia,” offering the first comments by a senior U.S. official on the seemingly expanding ties between two major U.S. adversaries.  South Korean officials first raised the alarm about the North Korean deployments to Russia last week, saying Seoul’s intelligence agencies had evidence that North Korean commandos were sent to Russia on their way to join Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

“Exactly what they’re doing is left to be seen,” Austin said of the North Korean troops in Russia. He made the remarks to reporters during a visit to Rome.

He said if the North Korean troops were about to become active participants in Russia’s war in Ukraine, it would be an indication that Putin — whose forces have been making territorial gains in recent months — could be in more trouble than many people realize. Some officials believe the gains along the front line in Ukraine have come at the cost of many thousands of Russian troops.

South Korean officials suspect the Northern troops are being trained in Russia to fight on that front line. South Korean intelligence estimates suggest there are now about 3,000 Northern troops in Russia, but Ukrainian officials have been following the matter closely, too, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and officials in South Korea have said the North could deploy more than 10,000 troops to Russia by the end of the year.

Ukrainian officials say they have not seen North Koreans fighting in the country yet, but the government in Kyiv issued a statement Wednesday calling on any North Korean troops fighting for Russia to surrender.

Defense officials in Washington have told CBS News that any impact North Korean forces could have on the battlefield will depend on how well trained and equipped they are and whether they’re used as elite commandos and advisors, or just to pad out flagging force numbers.

North Korea has been supplying Russia with artillery for its war in Ukraine for months.

But more important than North Korean troops’ potential battlefield impact are the wider implications of greater support for Putin’s war by Kim Jong Un’s isolated, nuclear-armed regime.

At a rare in-person summit in North Korea in June, Putin and Kim signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement, publicly expanding their economic and military cooperation to show a united front against Washington. 

The pact saw the leaders pledge to defend the other if either country was to come under attack, but officials in the U.S. and other Western capitals believe Russia, above all, has been keen to ensure a steady supply of North Korean weapons for its Ukraine war.

The U.S. and South Korea have been concerned for months that in return for Kim’s cooperation and support, Russia could provide North Korea with nuclear and advanced ballistic missile technology.

In light of the information about Kim sending troops to Russia, South Korea has threatened to supply Ukraine with weapons — something it has resisted doing since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of his neighboring country in February 2022.

North Korea’s government has not commented on the alleged deployment of troops to Russia. Moscow has dismissed it as “another fabrication.”

contributed to this report.

Charlie D’Agata

Charlie D’Agata is CBS News’ senior national security correspondent. He was previously a senior foreign correspondent and has spent more than two decades covering international news for CBS.