AP News
BY TARA COPP AND LOLITA C. BALDOR
Updated 2:50 PM EDT, October 30, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving to the Kursk region near Ukraine, in what he called a dangerous and destabilizing development.
Austin was speaking at a press conference in Washington with South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, as concerns grow about Pyongyang’s deployment of as many as 11,000 troops to Russia. The U.S. and South Korea say some of the North Korean troops are heading to Russia’s Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, where the Kremlin’s forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion. One senior Korean official said more than 3,000 of them are believed to have moved toward combat zones in western Russia, without specifying the locations.