CNN
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North Korea is sending its citizens to help the Russian army in the fight against Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky said, increasing concerns about the alliance between Moscow and the secret state.

In his daily video message on Sunday, the Ukrainian president said: “We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea. It is no longer just about transferring weapons. It’s actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying forces.”

Zelensky’s claim comes amid an increasingly friendly relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea in June – the first visit of its kind in more than two decades – and Western observers have questioned the extent to which North Korea has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It is clear that in such circumstances our relationships with our partners need to be developed. The front line needs more support,” Zelensky added, reiterating his plea to Western countries to allow Kiev to use long-range missiles on Russian territory.

A Ukrainian intelligence source, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told CNN last week that a small number of North Koreans have been working with the Russian military, mainly to help with engineering and to extract information from to exchange about the issue. the use of North Korean ammunition. Some of them were recently killed in eastern Ukraine, the source said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday dismissed allegations that North Korean personnel had been sent to help Russia as “yet another hoax.”

But South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said last week that it is monitoring developments and believes the claim could be true.

Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said it is “highly likely that the reported casualties of North Korean officers and soldiers in Ukraine are true, given various circumstances,” during the annual parliamentary audit of the defense sector on Tuesday.

“We believe that the possibility of further deployment of regular troops is very high, as Russia and North Korea have entered into a mutual agreement almost equivalent to a military alliance. We will also be well prepared for this eventuality,” he added.

Multiple governments have accused Pyongyang of supplying weapons to Moscow because of the heavy war in Ukraine, an accusation both countries have denied despite significant evidence of such transfers.

The two nations, both pariahs in the West, have forged increasingly cordial ties since the Russian invasion.

During Putin’s visit to the North Korean capital in June, the two countries pledged to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other was attacked, part of a historic defense pact agreed by the autocratic nations.

Putin said during that trip that the two countries were deepening ties to a “new level.”

In remarks ahead of the talks between the two, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his “full support and solidarity with the struggle of the Russian government, military and people,” specifically pointing to Moscow’s war in Ukraine ‘to protect its own sovereignty. security and territorial stability.”