KYIV: A video purporting to show dozens of North Korean recruits lining up to collect Russian military fatigues and gear aims to intimidate Ukrainian forces and marks a new chapter in the 2 1/2-year war with the introduction of another country into the battlefield, Ukrainian officials said.
In the video, which was verified by Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, which operates under the Culture and Information Ministry, presumably North Korean soldiers stand in line to pick up bags, clothes and other apparel from Russian servicemen. The Associated Press could not verify the video independently.
“We received this video from our own sources. We cannot provide additional verification from the sources who provided it to us due to security concerns,” said Ihor Solovey, head of the center.
“The video clearly shows North Korean citizens being given Russian uniforms under the direction of the Russian military,” he said. “For Ukraine, this video is important because it is the first video evidence that shows North Korea participating in the war on the side of Russia. Now not only with weapons and shells but also with personnel.”
The center claims the footage was shot by a Russian soldier in recent days.
It comes after the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said in local media reports that about 11,000 North Korean infantrymen were currently training in eastern Russia. He predicted they would be ready to join fighting by November. At least 2,600 would be sent to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an incursion in August, he was quoted as saying.
“The emergence of any number of new soldiers is a problem because we will simply need new, additional weapons to destroy them all,” Solovey told AP. “The dissemination of this video is important as a signal to the world community that with two countries officially at war against Ukraine, we will need more support to repel this aggression.”
The presence of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, if true, would be another proof of intensified military ties between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Last summer, they signed a strategic partnership treaty that commits both countries to provide military assistance. North Korean weapons have already been used in the Ukraine war.
Video published by Ukraine purports to show North Korean soldiers in Russia
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Video published by Ukraine purports to show North Korean soldiers in Russia
- In the video, presumably North Korean soldiers stand in line to pick up bags, clothes and other apparel from Russian servicemen
- “We cannot provide additional verification from the sources who provided it to us due to security concerns,” said Ihor Solovey, head of the center
At top UN court, Myanmar denies deadly Rohingya campaign amounts to genocide
- “Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” Hlaing told ICJ judges
- Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.
Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.
Gambia filed genocide case in 2019
African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar’s military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by US President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.
Myanmar denies Gambia claims of ‘genocidal intent’
As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”
Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council.
“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof,” he said. “This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”
Aung San Suu Kyi represented Myanmar at court in 2019. Now she’s imprisoned
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
Gambia rejects Myanmar’s claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”
In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.
