Russia 'has sent military aid to Pyongyang' in deal for Kursk reinforcements

Russia has sent air defence missiles and other military technology to North Korea in return for the deployment of its troops to support the Kremlin's war in Ukraine, intelligence officials in South Korea said yesterday.

- Justin McCurry Osaka Emma Graham-Harrison

The shipments were the latest expression of a deepening alliance that many fear could fuel the escalation of the war in Ukraine, geopolitical tensions in Asia, and potentially even global nuclear arms proliferation.

North Korea's dispatch of troops to fight for Russia and weapons from its vast stockpiles have been repaid with Russian oil and advanced military technology, experts believe, though neither side has commented publicly on the practical details of their alliance.

As a sign of how important the relationship is to Pyongyang, one of the country's top generals has been deployed to supervise more than 10,000 men now fortifying Russian lines in the Kursk region, the Wall Street Journal reported. Their numbers could grow. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said up to 100,000 North Korean troops could join the battlefield.

Late yesterday, Zelenskyy in his nightly video address said that the world needed a "serious response" to the deployment so Russia would not expand the war further. He said the North Korean move was clearly "an international crime".

When Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use the US-made Atacms missiles to hit Russian territory this week, the decision was in part a response to the arrival of North Korean troops there, US officials said.