BRUSSELS: If North Korea were to send troops to Ukraine to fight on Russia’s behalf it would significantly escalate the conflict, NATO Chief Mark Rutte said on social media platform X on Monday.

Rutte, who took office at NATO at the start of the month, said he had a discussion with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol about the alliance’s close partnership with Seoul, focusing on defense industrial cooperation and the interconnected security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that North Korea was preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow’s war effort, and that some North Korean officers were already deployed on Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.

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The West has long accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russia.

Rutte and the Pentagon both said last week that they have found no evidence yet of a North Korean military presence on the ground in Ukraine.