North Korea gains war experience against neighbors by fighting Ukraine, U.S. warns

Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dorothy Camille Shea, made this statement, according to Reuters.

The U.S. representative at a UN Security Council meeting warned about North Korea's troops participating in the war against Ukraine. The diplomat noted that over 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia, where they began fighting Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region last month.

"The DPRK is significantly benefiting from receiving Russian military equipment, technology and experience, rendering it more capable of waging war against its neighbors," Shea told the 15-member council, which met over what Pyongyang said was a test of a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile on Monday.

"In turn, the DPRK will likely be eager to leverage these improvements to promote weapons sales and military training contracts globally," added the U.S. representative.

South Korea's U.N. Ambassador Joonkook Hwang told the council that North Korea's soldiers were "essentially slaves to Kim Jong Un, brainwashed to sacrifice their lives on faraway battlefields to raise money for his regime and secure advanced military technology from Russia."

• On Monday, January 6, North Korea tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting the South Korean capital Seoul.
• Before that, North Korea last launched several short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea on November 5, 2024.