Russian state media said North Korea recently offered to send 100,000 “volunteers” to aid the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine.
Russian journalist Igor Korotchenko alleged on Russian Channel One last week that “100,000 North Korean volunteers are prepared to come and take part in the conflict” in Ukraine and aid Russia. The claim has yet to be verified.
Korotchenko went on to praise North Korea’s “wealth of experience with counter-battery warfare,” adding, “If North Korea expresses a desire to meet its international duty to fight against Ukrainian fascism, we should let them.”
North Korea currently has the fourth-highest number of active-duty military personnel in the world with nearly 1.3 million, compared to the United States (1,388,100), India (1,455,550) and China (2,185,000).
North Korea also offered to dispatch workers to help rebuild Ukraine post-war. South Korean newspaper Daily NK reportedly learned that on July 25, North Korean authorities had instructed companies operating in Russia to prepare and send more than a thousand workers to the Donbas region.
“Considering that the war isn’t over yet, the government is planning to send workers at an appropriate time while monitoring the situation on the ground,” a North Korean source told Daily NK. “The Workers’ Party is making eager preparations because it regards the Russian request as a good opportunity to acquire foreign currency.”
Meanwhile, North Korea expressed outrage over U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to South Korea as part of her delegation tour in Asia last week, which also included a stop in Taiwan.
North Korea called Pelosi the “worst destroyer of international peace and stability” on Saturday, with Jo Yong Sam, director general at the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s press and information affairs department, accusing her of “stirring up the atmosphere of confrontation” with North Korea.
“It would be a fatal mistake for her to think that she can go scot-free in the Korean Peninsula,” Jo said. “The U.S. will have to pay dearly for all the sources of trouble spawned by her wherever she went.”
During her visit, Pelosi visited the border between the two countries and discussed the isolated nation’s nuclear program with South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin Pyo.
