A bipartisan group of over a dozen US lawmakers united in a call for immediate sanctions on North Korea over its support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent reports.
The group led by Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, and Democrat Gerry Connolly, the chair of the US delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, recently introduced a landmark legislation called “Russia-North Korea Cooperation Sanctions Act” urging the Trump administration to document, report, and act upon “all significant activities” by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in its support to Russia and its proxies in Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.
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The authors also ask the administration to double down on its strong efforts to punish any institution and individual involved in facilitating Moscow-Pyongyang cooperation against Ukraine, according to a draft bill first seen by Kyiv Post.
The move comes just as North Korea last week for the first time confirmed sending its troops to Russia to support the war, saying the deployment was meant to help the Kremlin regain the Kursk region that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise incursion last year.
Lacking armored vehicles and drone warfare experience, about 14,000 DPRK troops, including 3,000 reinforcements are to have been sent to Russia to replace Moscow’s losses and they took heavy casualties but adapted quickly, according to media reports.
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The State Department on Tuesday condemned the move, calling for an end to North Korea’s military deployment to support Russia’s war.
“North Korea is not being helpful,” Spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a daily briefing in response to Kyiv Post’s questions.
“There are other nations that also are facilitating this carnage [in Ukraine], and their actions make it possible to continue. Third countries, like North Korea, have perpetuated the Russia-Ukraine war and they bear responsibility for it,” Bruce went on to add.
She then continued: “We continue to be concerned by North Korea’s direct involvement in the war. North Korea’s military deployment to Russia and any support provided by the Russian Federation to the DPRK in return must end.”
Bruce concluded by mentioning that Russia’s training of North Korean soldiers directly violates UN Security Council Resolutions 1718, 1874, and 2270, which collectively impose a broad prohibition on providing or receiving military training or assistance to or from the DPRK.
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