Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said that NATO should consider sending troops to Ukraine, following reports that North Korea is doing it to support Russia’s war effort.
“At the beginning of the year [French President] Emmanuel Macron hinted at putting boots on the ground. At the end of the year, North Korea actually did it. We are still on the back foot, reacting to escalation instead of reversing it. Macron’s ideas should now be revisited, better late than never,” the Lithuanian foreign minister posted on X on Sunday night.
Speaking about Western support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion, Macron said in late February that he would not rule out the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine in future.
Such statements by the French leader have been rejected by some other Western leaders. Meanwhile, Lithuanian officials said they were considering sending troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainians, but for the time being the main priority remained support in the form of arms and ammunition.
Seoul’s spy agency said on Friday that North Korea had decided to send “large-scale” troops to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, reporting that 1,500 special forces were already in Russia’s Far East and undergoing training.
The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, claimed in local media last week that about 11,000 North Korean infantrymen were currently training in eastern Russia. He predicted they would be ready to join the fighting by November. At least 2,600 would be sent to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an incursion in August, he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, a video purporting to show dozens of North Korean recruits lining up to collect Russian military fatigues was released late last week by Ukrainian officials, who say it shows the introduction of troops sent by Pyongyang into the conflict.
The video, published by Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, which operates under the Culture and Information Ministry, allegedly shows North Korean soldiers standing in line to pick up bags, clothes and other apparel from Russian servicemen.
Photo: Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis
Via LRT
