White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday that the United States is monitoring reports that North Korean soldiers are being “deployed to Russia” to fight in Ukraine.

“We will obviously continue to investigate these reports,” Kirby said. “We are also talking to our allies and partners about what they say about this. If it is true that the North Korean soldiers are going there to join the war against Ukraine, it would certainly mark a dangerous and very worrying development.”

Kirby said the development was a sign of “a new demonstration of Putin’s growing desperation and his growing isolation that he needs to reach out to North Korea for potential – potential, as I said, we are looking into the reports – potential infantry support for his ground operations . .”

“There is no doubt that its forces continue to suffer extraordinary levels of battlefield casualties,” Kirby said, citing figures for Russia that is losing more than 1,200 soldiers a day.

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National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby speaks during a press conference at the White House on June 21, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“That is truly a historic number of soldiers killed and wounded in this battle, all to achieve, except for a twisted and distorted idea of ​​his about Ukraine’s ability to exist as a sovereign state,” Kirby said. “I think this is all the point and proves that Mr. Putin is becoming increasingly desperate and increasingly isolated on the world stage.”

The US and NATO have not confirmed that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia. But reports of their presence have already fueled concerns in South Korea that Russia could provide North Korea with advanced technologies that could sharply improve the North’s nuclear and missile programs in return for the deployment of troops.

South Korea summoned Russia’s ambassador on Monday to protest the deepening of military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow and demand the immediate withdrawal of North Korean troops.

President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Russia’s Amur region on September 13, 2023. (Vladimir Smirnov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

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South Korea’s spy agency said it confirmed on Friday that North Korea sent 1,500 special operations troops to Russia this month to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were prepared to join invading Russian forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will shake hands with several world leaders this week, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian. They will gather in the Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday for a meeting of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, defying predictions that the war in Ukraine and an international arrest warrant for Putin would make him a pariah.

A Ukrainian tank fires during a training exercise towards Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, on July 20, 2024. (Ethan Swope/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The alliance, which aims to counterbalance the Western-led world order, initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but began expanding rapidly this year. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January; Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have formally signed up, and several others have expressed a desire to join.

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“These countries can decide for themselves who they want to associate with and, above all, how they want to be economically connected to each other. Russia is becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage,” Kirby said on Monday. ‘There’s no doubt about that. Mr. Putin still needs to take radical steps to keep his currency afloat and his war economy going.”

Putin is expected to conclude the BRICS conference with a press conference on Thursday, Reuters reports.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.