A senior U.S. administration official confirmed Wednesday that thousands of North Korean troops are in Russia “to be trained,” while Washington does not know for what mission they were sent there.

The official made the comment in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency, after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Rome that the United States is seeing evidence that Pyongyang has dispatched its soldiers to Russia.

“We know that thousands of DPRK troops are in Russia to be trained. We don’t know what their mission will be or if they’ll go on to fight in Ukraine,” the official said via email. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“But we do know that if they do this, it signals President Putin’s growing desperation in his war against Ukraine. Russia is suffering extraordinary casualties on the battlefield every day. If Russia needs to turn to DPRK for manpower, that’s a sign of desperation — not strength — on the part of the Kremlin,” the offi
cial added.

The official’s remark followed the Pentagon chief’s confirmation of the North’s troop dispatch.

“Our analysts are … they continue to look at this. Now we are seeing evidence that there are North Korean troops that have gone to Russia,” Austin said during press availability. “What exactly they are doing is left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”

Despite Seoul’s confirmation of the North’s deployment, Washington had not confirmed it, stoking speculation that there could be a gap in intelligence analysis between the two allies.

On Tuesday, Vedant Patel, the State Department’s deputy spokesperson, said that a process was under way to verify the deployment, while rejecting the notion that the U.S. has a lack of confidence in South Korean intelligence on the North’s deployment.

On Wednesday (Korea time), South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said that around 3,000 North Korean soldiers were believed to have been sent to Russia so far to support its ongoing war aga
inst Ukraine, with a total of 10,000 expected to be deployed by December.

The NIS shared the information with lawmakers during a closed-door meeting of the parliamentary intelligence committee, according to officials.

Source: Yonhap News Agency