Hundreds of North Korean troops have likely been transported by sea to Russia to fight on the Ukrainian front, satellite imagery has revealed, according to a new analysis by a US-based think tank shared exclusively with CNN.
At least two Russian naval vessels are believed to have moved North Korean soldiers to a Russian military port on the Danube in the far east in October and November, according to researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
The ship transfers were first identified by South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), which said in a press release last year that several soldiers were transported through the North Korean port areas of Chongjin, Hamhung and Musudan. But the South Korean agency only provided a radar image at the time.
"I don't think the Russians or the North Koreans want these transfers to be caught on camera. The element of secrecy is quite extraordinary," Sam Lair told CNN.
Now, researchers have verified that during the same time period of the troop transfers reported by South Korean intelligence, Russian ships identified by the spy agency docked at the Danube port in a remote, eastern part of Russia.
In North Korea, soldiers are likely to board these ships at night, making it difficult to capture evidence of the transfers, the researchers said. But satellite imagery has revealed activity on the Danube, “where the Russians appear to have been less cautious.”
For example, in a satellite image from Planet Labs, a crane can be seen extending onto one of the Russian naval vessels, which researchers believe is the Nikolay Vilkov, in port on October 17, and a covered truck is next to it. By October 20, the crane is retracted and the transfer of the soldiers appears to be complete.
Researchers were able to identify the Russian "Ropucha" and "Alligator" class ships in satellite images because they match photos captured by the Japanese Ministry of Defense in March 2022, when the ships passed through Japanese waters.
According to researchers, each ship is believed to have the capacity to carry several hundred soldiers, possibly up to 400. Lair explained that the Danube is a secure military facility, making it much more conducive to under-the-radar transfers than the nearby large port of Vladivostok, which is in an area inhabited by civilians.
“This is an isolated place where they can do these exchanges, where people won’t notice it… where their own citizens and people in the intelligence community might not notice it,” Lair said.
About 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia, according to Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence reports in January, which said about 4,000 of those troops were killed or wounded. Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have confirmed the existence of North Korean troops on the front lines. (A2 Televizion)
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