SEOUL, South Korea: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said there is evidence that North Korea has sent troops to Russia on Monday, and South Korea’s spy chief told lawmakers that 3,000 North Korean troops are in the country receiving training on drones and other equipment before being deployed to battlefields in Ukraine.
Austin told reporters Wednesday “What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”
South Korean intelligence first publicized reports that the Russian navy had taken 1,500 North Korean special warfare troops to Russia last week, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korea soldiers were being prepared to join the invading Russian forces.
The US and NATO had not previously formally confirmed North Korea’s reported troop dispatch, but have warned of the danger of such a development if true. Russia and North Korea have so far denied the troop movements.
“If it’s true that DPRK soldiers are joining Putin’s war against Ukraine, it certainly would mark a dangerous and highly concerning development,” Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson at the US State Department, told a briefing Tuesday. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.
South Korean National Intelligence Service Director Cho Tae-yong told lawmakers that said another 1,500 North Korean troops have entered Russia in a closed-door meeting, according to lawmaker Park Sunwon, who attended the briefing.
Cho told lawmakers that his agency assessed that North Korea aims to deploy a total of 10,000 troops to Russia by December, Park told reporters.
Park cited Cho as saying the 3,000 North Korean soldiers sent to Russia have been split among multiple military bases and are in training. Cho told lawmakers that NIS believes they have yet to be deployed in battle, according to Park.
Speaking jointly with Park about the NIS briefing, lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun said that the NIS found that the Russian military is now teaching those North Korean soldiers how to use military equipment such as drones.
Lee cited the NIS chief as saying Russian instructors have high opinions of the morale and physical strength of the North Korean soldiers but think they will eventually suffer a heavy causalities because they lack an understanding of modern warfare. Lee, citing Cho, said Russia is recruiting a large number of interpreters.
Lee said NIS has detected signs that North Korea is relocating family members of soldiers chosen to be sent to Russia to special sites to isolate them.
The NIS chief told lawmakers that North Korea hasn’t disclosed its troop dispatch to its own people. But there are rumors that the news is spreading to local residents, including those whose loved ones have been assigned Russian tours, Lee said, citing the NIS.
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate head, Kyrylo Budanov, told the online military news outlet The War Zone that North Korean troops will arrive to Russia’s Kursk region today to help Russian troops fighting off a Ukrainian incursion.
North Korea and Russia, embroiled in separate confrontations with the West, have been sharply boosting their cooperation in the past two years. In June, they signed a major defense deal requiring both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
The NIS said last week that North Korea had sent more than 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles.
Reports that the North is sending troops to Russia stoked security jitters in South Korea. South Korean officials worry that Russia may reward North Korea by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that could boost the North’s nuclear and missile programs that target South Korea.
South Korea said Tuesday it would consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to the North’s reported troop dispatch. South Korea has shipped humanitarian and financial support to Ukraine, but it has so far avoided directly supplying arms to Ukraine in line with its policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflicts.
North Korea has 1.2 million troops, one of the largest standing armies in the world, but it hasn’t fought in large-scale conflicts since the 1950-53 Korean War. Many experts question how much North Korean troops would help Russia, citing a shortage of battle experience. They say North Korea wants to get Russian economic support and its help to modernize the North’s outdated conventional weapons systems as well as its high-tech weapons technology transfers.
US Defense Secretary Austin confirms North Korea has sent troops to Russia
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US Defense Secretary Austin confirms North Korea has sent troops to Russia
- The latest deployment brings the number of Pyongyang’s troops in Russia to 3,000, lawmaker Park Sun-won said
- Seoul’s spy agency last week said Pyongyang had decided to send a ‘large-scale’ troop deployment to Russia
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
Pakistani police arrest thousands of Imran Khan supporters as capital under lock down ahead of rally
Pakistani police arrest thousands of Imran Khan supporters as capital under lock down ahead of rally
- Former PM Imran Khan has been behind bars for more than a year and has over 150 criminal cases against him
- Earlier on Sunday, Pakistan suspended mobile and Internet services ‘in areas with security concerns’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police arrested thousands of Imran Khan supporters as the capital remained under lock down ahead of a rally there to demand the ex-premier’s release from prison, a security officer said Sunday.
Khan has been behind bars for more than a year and has over 150 criminal cases against him. But he remains popular and his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI, says the cases are politically motivated.
Shahid Nawaz, a security officer in eastern Punjab province, said police have arrested more than 4,000 Khan supporters. They include five parliamentarians.
Pakistan has since Saturday sealed off Islamabad with shipping containers and shut down major roads and highways connecting the city with PTI strongholds in Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
Tit-for-tat teargas shelling between the police and the PTI was reported on the highway bordering Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Earlier on Sunday, Pakistan suspended mobile and Internet services “in areas with security concerns.”
The government and Interior Ministry posted the announcement on the social media platform X, which is banned in Pakistan. They did not specify the areas, nor did they say how long the suspension would be in place.
“Internet and mobile services will continue to operate as usual in the rest of the country,” the posts said.
Meanwhile, telecom company Nayatel sent out emails offering customers “a reliable landline service” as a workaround in the areas suffering suspended cellphone service.
Khan’s supporters rely heavily on social media to demand his release and use messaging platforms like WhatsApp to share information, including details of events.
PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqas Akram said Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi was traveling to Islamabad in a convoy led by the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gandapur.
“She cannot leave the party workers on their own,” said Akram.
There was a festive mood in Peshawar, with PTI members dancing, drumming and holding up pictures of Khan as cars set off for Islamabad.
The government is imposing social media platform bans and targeting VPN services, according to Internet advocacy group Netblocks. On Sunday, the group said live metrics showed problems with WhatsApp that were affecting media sharing on the app.
The US Embassy issued a security alert for Americans in the capital, encouraging them to avoid large gatherings and warning that even “peaceful gatherings can turn violent.”
Last month, authorities suspended the cellphone service in Islamabad and Rawalpindi to thwart a pro-Khan rally. The shutdown disrupted communications and affected everyday services such as banking, ride-hailing and food delivery.
The latest crackdown comes on the eve of a visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said authorities have sealed off Islamabad’s Red Zone, which houses key government buildings and is the destination for Khan’s supporters.
“Anyone reaching it will be arrested,” Naqvi told a press conference.
He said the security measures were in place to protect residents and property, blaming the PTI for inconveniencing people and businesses.
He added that protesters were planning to take the same route as the Belarusian delegation, but that the government had headed off this scenario.
Naqvi denied cellphone services were suspended and said only mobile data was affected.
