North Korea slams ‘reckless’ US-led criticism of involvement in Ukraine

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a foreign ministry spokesman said the 10 nations and the European Union (EU) were “distorting and slandering” Pyongyang’s “normal cooperative” ties with Moscow.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce Russia’s war effort, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year.

On Monday, those nations and the EU said North Korea’s growing involvement in the war in Ukraine in support of Russia constituted a “dangerous expansion of the conflict, with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security”.

The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the high representative of the European Union signed the statement, released by Washington.

“We urge the DPRK to cease immediately all assistance for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its troops”, the statement said.

But Pyongyang’s foreign ministry fired back, with the spokesman offering its “serious concern and protest, denouncing and rejecting in the strongest terms the reckless provocation of the US and its vassal forces”.

North Korea said the “madness” of the response by “hostile forces” indicated that the increased cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow was effectively “deterring the US and the West’s ill-intended extension of influence”.

It did not specifically mention its troop deployment alongside Russian forces, only saying the war in Ukraine “has been prolonged” by what it called the “adventuristic military policy and policy of exclusive alliance” of Washington and its allies.

North Korea “will firmly safeguard its legitimate right as a sovereign state, put no restrictions on exercising it and continue to make crucial efforts to preserve regional and global peace and security”, the statement carried by KCNA said.

North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A landmark defence pact between Pyongyang and Moscow signed in June came into force earlier this month.

A senior US military official said Tuesday that North Korea had suffered “several hundred casualties in the Kursk region, ranging from “light wounds up to being KIA (killed in action)”.