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    • Russian soldiers complain about North Korean troops: intercepted calls
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    Russian soldiers complain about North Korean troops: intercepted calls

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    WASHINGTON – Ukrainian spies say they have intercepted phone calls showing that Russia is working to integrate North Korean forces into its military operations.

    Some calls were intercepted by forces involved in the defense of Kursk, a Russian region on Ukraine’s northern border where Ukrainian forces captured territory in August, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Agency said.

    The Russian military has assigned one translator and three Russian soldiers for every 30 North Korean soldiers, the spy agency says it has learned from the calls.

    But Russian soldiers from the intercepted calls appeared to doubt whether they would have enough commanders to lead the new units, or enough weapons and ammunition to arm them 979 days after the invasion of Moscow.

    In a phone conversation that the spy agency said was recorded in Kursk, a Russian soldier was “outraged” by a commander ordering troops to supply Russian armored vehicles – which were already in short supply – to newly arrived North Korean troops.

    More: According to the US, 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia on their way to Ukraine

    “I want to kill him today, yes, after the Koreans,” a soldier says, according to the audio.

    On another visit, a soldier complained that there were not enough translators. “We all work as translators now,” he said.

    In the expletive-laced audio, another soldier roughly referred to the troops as “Chinese.”

    The agency also said it learned that Russian police stopped a truck full of North Korean soldiers heading to Kursk on Sunday because the driver did not have “combat orders.”

    It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to strengthen ties and share intelligence on the roughly 12,000 North Korean troops he says will move to Russian military bases.

    Ukraine and South Korea plan to “exchange delegations,” he said in a message to X.

    Meanwhile, North Korea’s foreign minister has arrived in eastern Russia and will travel to Moscow in six weeks for her second visit, Russian state media reported, although the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet her .

    The Pentagon said Monday that about 10,000 North Korean troops are now at military posts in Russia’s eastern region and could be deployed to Kursk in the coming weeks — up from last week’s estimate of 3,000.

    “We are increasingly concerned that Russia plans to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast near the border with Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Monday.

    Contributions: Reuters

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