North Korea has sent troops to Russia, the United States said Wednesday, its first public confirmation of a move that has rattled Western allies and could mark a major escalation of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

“There is evidence of DPRK troops in Russia,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Rome, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“What exactly they’re doing is left to be seen,” Austin said, adding, “We’re trying to gain better fidelity on it.” It’s a “serious issue,” he said, if North Korea’s “intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf.”

His comments came after South Korea and Ukraine sounded the alarm in recent days, sharing intelligence and voicing dissatisfaction with what they see as a lack of urgency in the response from the U.S. and other Western countries.

  • FlashMobOfOne
    link
    English
    -8
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    Is this something for which there’s actual evidence, or is it another Iraq WMD situation, where we’re kind of just expected to take all of the assertions as gospel?

    It’s not as if they won’t lie to us in order to manufacture buy-in from the public in order to send US troops.

    • @fluxion
      link
      English
      63 hours ago

      And has anyone considered that it’s not North Koreans fighting in Ukraine, but extraterrestrials disguised as North Koreans?

      • FlashMobOfOne
        link
        English
        124 minutes ago

        Are you familiar with US history, and the number of times its people have been lied to in order to support war? Just off the top of my head: Gulf of Tonkin, the WMD’s, the Iran coup, the USS Maine, and I definitely remember the time when we treated Saddam Hussein the same way we’re treating Zelensky now back in 1983.

        So I’m asking again, has anyone provided actual evidence, publicly, that this has even occurred, or am I just supposed to take these assertions as fact?

      • @AnUnusualRelic
        link
        English
        23 hours ago

        It could simply be hamsters in korean uniforms…

        • FlashMobOfOne
          link
          English
          1
          edit-2
          21 minutes ago

          Or it could be absolutely nothing, as has occurred in US war-making, quite recently too. It’s historical precedent in US foreign policy to just lie about things occurring in order to drum up support for war. Both Bush’s did it. Remember the Nayirah testimony?

        • @fluxion
          link
          English
          13 hours ago

          You raise a fair point. i hadn’t considered that.