Ukraine Russia war live: North Korea vows to back Putin as US claim thousands join up

Despite a gradual economic recovery in North Korean over the past 30 years, defectors say the average monthly wage for ordinary North Korean workers and soldiers is less than $1.

They say many people engage in capitalist market activities to make a living because the country’s state rationing system remains largely broken.

Russia is expected to pay all the costs related to the deployment of North Korean troops, including their wages, which observers estimate will be at least $2,000 per month for each person.

Around 90 to 95 per cent of their stipends will likely go to Mr Kim’s coffers, and the rest to the soldiers. This means one year of service in Russia would earn a North Korean soldier $1,200 to $2,400. That’s big enough to prompt many young soldiers to volunteer for risky Russian tours, former soldiers say.

Large North Korean troop casualties in Ukraine or Russia would be a major political blow for the country’s 40-year-old ruler, Kim Jong Un.

But experts say Mr Kim may see this as a way to get much needed foreign currency and security support from Russia in return for joining the war.

“Kim Jong Un is taking a big gamble. If there are no large casualty numbers, he will get what he wants to some extent. But things will change a lot if many of his soldiers die in battle,” Ahn Chan-il, a former North Korean army first lieutenant who leads the World Institute for North Korean Studies, told the Associated Press.

The thousands of young soldiers North Korea has sent to Russia, reportedly to help fight against Ukraine, are mostly elite special forces, but that hasn’t stopped speculation they’ll be slaughtered because they have no combat experience, no familiarity with the terrain and will likely be dropped onto the most ferocious battlefields.

That may be true, and soon. Observers say the troops are already arriving at the front. From the North Korean perspective, however, these soldiers might not be as miserable as outsiders think.

They may, in fact, view their Russian tour with pride and as a rare chance to make good money, see a foreign country for the first time, and win preferred treatment for their families back home, according to former North Korean soldiers.

The Pentagon has said that North Korea dispatched 10,000 troops to Russia, with some of them believed to be heading to the Kursk border to join Vladimir Putin’s forces in their invasion of Ukraine amid the biggest conflict Europe has seen since the Second World War.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said some North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region. The Russian forces are facing difficulty in pushing back Ukraine’s cross-border incursion launched on 6 August.

This came within hours of Nato secretary general Mark Rutte confirming recent Ukrainian intelligence reports of the presence of North Korean military units deployed to Kursk near the Ukrainian border.

In Ukraine’s east, Russia’s forces have recently advanced near Kupyansk, Svatove, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and Vuhledar, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions near Kurakhove, analysts said.

Following his first conversation with Vladimir Putin in more than two years, Serbian president Alexander Vucic told Bloomberg that he brought up the subject of a ceasefire in Ukraine with the Russian leader.

Mr Putin is said to have replied that Russia will fulfill all the goals of its “special miliary operation” in Ukraine.

The US-based Institute of the Study of War think-tank said: “Vladimir Putin continues to communicate that he is uninterested in a negotiated ceasefire and is committed to achieving his goal of destroying Ukrainian statehood.”

It added: “A negotiated ceasefire on current lines and under current circumstances will only benefit Russia and will afford the Kremlin time to further radicalise and militarise Russian society against Ukraine and the Russian military time to rest and reconstitute, likely before conducting a future attack on Ukraine.”

South Korea is reportedly planning to send personnel to Ukraine to monitor North Korean troops, amid reports that Pyongyang has deployed some 10,000 soldiers to Russia.

South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh cited a senior presidential office official as saying on Wednesday that South Korea has a “legitimate need” to analyse North Korean military activities in the war in Ukraine and “feels the need” to establish a team to monitor North Korean troops and the battlefield situation.

Last week, South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted a government source as saying that South Korea was considering sending South Korean military personnel, likely from intelligence units, to Ukraine to monitor North Korean forces’ tactics and combat capabilities and to question captured North Koreans.

Russian troops are moving in small groups and trying to gain a foothold across the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal in Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian military spokesperson has said.

“The purpose of such actions is to accumulate as much as possible before the attack. However, such attempts are detected by our drones and are targeted,” she told Ukrainian broadcasters, according to the Kyiv Independent.

The spokesperson insisted that the front line in Chasiv Yar – which has been partially controlled by Russia since July – has been “stabilised”.

Ukraine has refuted Russian claims to have captured the Donetsk towns of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk, with a military spokesperson insisting that the front line has been “stabilised” and that Russian troops are not advancing.

Chasiv Yar has been partially controlled by Russia since July and its seizure by Vladimir Putin’s forces would be a major blow to Kyiv.

Speaking on national television, the spokesperson said: “At the moment, they do not have an advantage in these towns. The contact line is stabilised.”