Ukraine Russia war latest: North Koreans in Putin’s ‘meat grinder’ war legitimate target, says Blinken

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has said Russia is now relying on North Korean troops in the wake of heavy battlefield losses.

“They’re doing this because (Russian president Vladimir) Putin has lost a lot of troops,” Mr Austin said, adding that Moscow has a choice between mobilising more of its own forces or turning to others for help.

Mr Austin said Ukraine could hold on to Russian territory in Kursk, and that the number of North Korean troops pales in comparison to casualties Russian forces recently have been suffering – some 1,250 a day.

“I do believe that they can hold on to the territory, if they choose to do that. They do have options,” Austin said of Ukrainian troops.

Russia has had to shift some resources to the Kursk border region to respond to Ukraine’s offensive.

The deployment of up to 12,000 North Korean troops to Russia has become a key topic as US and South Korean leaders meet in Washington this week, fueling concerns that the presence of those soldiers will further destabilise the Asia-Pacific and broaden Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

As some of those troops moved closer to Ukraine this week from training sites in eastern Russia, the main questions revolve around what new military technologies North Korea might get from Russia in exchange for the deployment and whether it might lead other nations to send their own forces to fight in the war.

Russian air defences downed 83 Ukrainian drones overnight, the TASS news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry this morning.

North Korea has sent some 11,000 soldiers to Russia and over 3,000 of them have been moved close to the frontlines, Reuters quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying.

The official said North Korea will gain military knowledge from its troops helping the Russian war effort which poses a military threat to South Korea. “So it is incumbent upon us to analyse and monitor the activities of North Korean troops against our ally, Ukraine,” the official added.

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.

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.

The foreign secretary’s unexpectedly early visit risks exposing the limits of the UK’s influence on the world stage, writes Mary Dejevsky:

Russia is “surprised” that Turkey continues to supply Ukraine with weapons while trying to act as a mediator in the conflict between the two countries, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the Hurriyet newspaper.

“Turkish weapons are used by the Ukrainian armed forces to kill Russian military personnel and civilians,” Mr Lavrov said in an interview published yesterday.

“This situation cannot but cause surprise, given the Turkish government’s statements that it is ready to provide mediation services,” he said.

Russia’s torture of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war is a crime against humanity, UN-backed human rights experts said yesterday.

Erik Mose, chair of the independent commission investigating human rights violations in Ukraine, told reporters that the panel previously described Russia’s widespread and systematic use of torture in Ukraine and Russia against civilians and prisoners, both men and women, as a war crime.

“Our recent findings demonstrate that Russian authorities have committed torture in all provinces of Ukraine that came under their control, as well as in the detention facilities that the commission has investigated in the Russian Federation,” he said.

Mose said the commission is an investigative body. He noted that Ukraine‘s prosecutor general and the International Criminal Court are investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine and the commission may be asked for evidence.

The commissioners examined reports from 41 different detention centers, from makeshift centers to well-established facilities, in nine occupied regions of Ukraine and eight areas in Russia, Mose said.

He said the commission identified further evidence that violent practices common in Russian detention facilities were also practiced in similar facilities in Russian-occupied areas in eastern Ukraine, he said.

The commission also found additional evidence of the recurrent use of sexual violence as a form of torture, Mose said.

Detainees were subjected to rape, long periods of forced nudity, body searches and more, commission member Vrinda Gover said. She said most prisoners of war reported being subjected to sexual violence and suffering long-lasting psychological trauma.