Vladimir Putin deflected claims that North Korea has sent troops to Russia, insisting that it is up to Moscow how to implement its mutual defense clause with Pyongyang. In his closing speech at the BRICS summit, held this Thursday in Kazan, he accused the West of escalating the war in Ukraine and stated that he is “living an illusion” if he thinks he can inflict strategic defeat on Russia.
The United States says it has seen evidence that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for possible deployment to Ukraine, a move that could pose a fundamental challenge to kyiv due to its manpower shortage.
When asked by a journalist about satellite images apparently showing North Korean troop movements, Putin responded: “The images are serious stuff. If there are, it means that there is something.”
The Kremlin leader also doubled down on his claims that the West had escalated the Ukraine crisis and claimed that NATO officers and instructors are directly involved in the Ukraine war: “We know who is present there, from which European NATO countries. , and how they carry out this work,” Putin said.
While Putin may have been deliberately ambiguous to lower the morale of Ukrainians, it is also surprising that he did not deny the accusations when given a high-level opportunity to do so. No other BRICS leaders raised the issue publicly during this week’s summit, where vague calls for moderation were made.
This Thursday, Ukraine’s military intelligence service declared that the first North Korean units trained in Russia They had been deployed in the Kursk region, the Russian border area where Ukrainian forces staged a major incursion in August. “On October 23, 2024, their presence was recorded in the Kursk region,” the Ukrainian intelligence agency confirmed in a statement.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, warned, citing information collected by his intelligence services, that the first North Korean soldiers who are already receiving training will be sent with the Russian Army to the front “on October 27 or 28.” Zelensky called the alleged imminent deployment of North Korean soldiers to the front an “obvious escalation” by Moscow.
Putin meets with Guterres in Russia
UN Secretary General António Guterres took advantage of his speech at the BRICS summit to call for a “just peace.” Guterres was in Russia for the first time since April 2022 and held private talks about Ukraine with Putin late in the day. Moscow, for its part, intended to use the forum to build a united front of emerging economies that use alternatives to the dollar for trade.
“We need peace in Ukraine, a just peace in line with the UN charter, international law and the General Assembly resolution [de la ONU]”Guterres said. And he added: “We must defend the values of the United Nations Charter, the rule of law and the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of all States,” without making any reference to the North Korean troops.
It is the first time that Guterres meets with Putin since, in March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian leader for the kidnapping of children in Ukraine and their transfer to Russia. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has criticized Guterres over the meeting, especially since he turned down an invitation to attend a Ukrainian-sponsored peace summit this summer.
Guterres urged BRICS members not to see the organization as an alternative to the UN: “No group or country can act alone or in isolation. “It takes a community of nations, working as a global family, to address global challenges,” he said.
For his part, Putin stated that the emergence of a “more just world order” was being hampered by “forces accustomed to thinking and acting in the logic of domination over everything and everyone,” asserting that kyiv’s foreign supporters were already They did not even hide their objective of inflicting a strategic defeat on their country. “Only those who do not know the history of Russia can believe in this, because they do not take into account the unity and strength of spirit of the Russians forged over the centuries,” he said.
This article has been updated by the editorial staff of elDiario.es.
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