Vladimir Putin is regretful over the war in Ukraine, according to the latest claim by one of his closest allies, as US defense officials warned North Korean troops will become ‘legitimate targets’ if they are seen to fight alongside Russian forces. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko delivered a wide-ranging interview with the BBC and state-owned broadcaster BelTA this week in which he was asked whether his Russian counterpart had regrets over launching his so-called ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. Lukashenko – arguably the world leader who shares the closest relationship with Putin – sought to explain the Kremlin chief’s view on the conflict which has left hundreds of thousands dead and wounded on both sides. ‘Putin often talks about this – the main thing is the interests of Russia and the Russian people,’ he said. ‘He is obliged to protect these interests… We can condemn him for this, but he thinks this way.’ But he went on to claim that the brutality of the conflict is weighing heavy on the mind of the Russian President.
‘Both sides suffer heavy losses… Does Putin regret it or not? Of course he regrets. He’s a living man.’ Putin’s reported regret over the human cost of the conflict comes amid speculation that thousands of troops from North Korea are now in Russia, most likely in preparation for battle in Ukraine. Moscow and Pyongyang have dismissed the claims as fabrications, but Ukraine, the US and South Korea all insist their intelligence puts thousands of North Korean soldiers on Russian soil. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declared last night that Washington is not certain whether the troops are headed for the frontline, but added: ‘If these North Korean troops are employed against Ukraine ‘they will become legitimate military targets’. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile has warned that the participation of a third country could escalate the conflict into a world war.
In his BBC interview, Lukashenko said it was a ‘lie’ and ‘rubbish’ that North Korean troops were being drafted in to fight in the Ukraine war. He also denied that he would order Belarus troops to assist Putin. ‘Knowing his character Putin would never try to persuade another country to involve its army in Russia’s special operation in Ukraine,’ he said, before warning such a move would constitute an ‘escalation of the conflict’ and could trigger the deployment of Western forces. ‘It would be a step towards the escalation of the conflict if the armed forces of any country, even Belarus, were on the contact line,’ Lukashenko said. ‘Even if we got involved in the war this would be a path to escalation. Why? Because you, the Anglo-Saxons, would immediately say that another country had got involved on one side… so NATO troops would be deployed to Ukraine.’
Meanwhile, Kyiv is preparing as though combating North Korea in its territory is inevitable. Zelensky told reporters Monday that North Korean officers and technical personnel have already been spotted in Russian-occupied territories. ‘I believe they sent officers first to assess the situation before deploying troops,’ Zelensky said. Ukraine’s ‘I Want to Live’ project, a hotline encouraging Russian soldiers to surrender, published a video in Korean on Wednesday calling for North Korean soldiers to give up. ‘We call for the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army, who were sent to help the Putin regime. You should not die senselessly on someone else’s land. There is no need to repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home!’ it said.
An injection of 10,000 North Korean troops, which is what both Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence have claimed, ‘could significantly destabilize Ukraine’s defense and greatly accelerate the advancement of Russian forces,’ said Glib Voloskyi, an analyst from a Ukrainian think tank, Come Back Alive Initiatives Center. But the reported figures of North Korean troop numbers vary wildly, with US intelligence putting the number at 3,000. And though Russian military sources who spoke to the BBC confirmed North Korean soldiers had indeed arrived in the Far East, they said the number was ‘nowhere near 3,000’. In any case, Western defense officials are treating the prospect very seriously. ‘If they’re co-belligerents — if their intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf — that is a very, very serious issue,’ US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said yesterday.
‘It will have impacts, not only in Europe. It will also impact things in the Indo-Pacific as well.’ Kirby meanwhile told reporters at the White House that North Koreans appear to be receiving a ‘basic kind of combat training and familiarization’ in what he called a ‘first tranche’ of soldiers, but could not say when or where they would enter the Ukraine conflict. Russia’s Kursk region is still partially occupied by Ukrainian forces that launched a lightning offensive there earlier this year. Ukrainian intelligence officials have said they expect Kim Jong Un’s troops to deploy alongside Russian units to reclaim this territory. ‘We expect the first units in the Kursk direction,’ said Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
How many will be deployed and how they will be equipped is still unclear, but Budanov said he expected some 2,600 troops from Pyongyang to arrive in Kursk. ‘We’ll see in a couple of days,’ GUR chief Lt-Gen Budanov told US website The War Zone earlier this week. North Korea and Russia, both in separate confrontations with the West, have deepened their military cooperation in the past two years. In June, they signed a landmark defense deal requiring both countries to provide military assistance if the other is attacked. Kim Jong Un has sent more than 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles.
Those missiles and munitions are being actively used against Ukrainian targets, officials in Kyiv say. But analysts say the introduction of North Korean troops into the Ukraine war would be a sign that the conflict isn’t going as Russia planned. ‘You don’t get thousands of soldiers from North Korea if your war is going well,’ said Justin Crump, a former British tank commander who heads Sibylline, a strategic advisory firm. ‘You don’t require them.’ Besides discussing the prospect of North Korean troops fighting on behalf of Russia in Ukraine, Lukashenko told the BBC that he had a veto on use of nuclear weapons that Russia has deployed in Belarus. Putin ‘will never use the weapons stationed in Belarus without the Belarusian president’s consent’, he said, before insisting he would never authorize the use of the weapons unless foreign soldiers enter Belarusian territory.
However, Lukashenko’s considered interview with the BBC was broadcast alongside another appearance on a Russian state news channel. There, he gave an unhinged interview in which he went on a lengthy rant suggesting Kyiv may be developing a nuclear weapon to attack Moscow. The Belarusian President – elected for a sixth term in office in a 2020 election widely seen as rigged – said he would stand for another five year term in January. All opposition is ruthlessly crushed by his KGB secret service, with Russian forces ready to prop him up, as they did in 2020, if needed. ‘Zelensky is not as brave as we sometimes think,’ he declared. ‘In order to press the red button, you have to have a certain courage… You have to think about what happens afterwards. You pressed it, then what? ‘Russia will collapse because you drop a dirty bomb, even on Moscow? No, Russia will not collapse, but it will hit so that Ukraine will disappear. ‘He should keep that in his mind too, he’s not a stupid man. ‘Even if he creates (a dirty bomb) He loves the good life. Ge’s afraid of losing it all.’
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