00:00We believe that the DPRK has sent approximately 10,000 soldiers in total
00:05to train in eastern Russia and that these troops will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks.
00:13A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine towards Russia's Kursk Oblast near the border with Ukraine,
00:21approximately a couple thousand, with a smaller number already present in the Kursk region.
00:26We remain concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Kursk.
00:34We continue to monitor closely and are consulting with our Ukrainian partners as well as other allies and partners.
00:40Indications that there's already a small number that are actually in the Kursk Oblast
00:47with a couple thousand more that are either, you know, almost there or due to arrive imminently.
00:54Again, we'll continue to, the rest at this time, of course, training out in the east,
01:01but fully expect that they'll move in that direction at some point.
01:04Can you sort of narrow that? Are you talking dozens, hundreds?
01:08I'm not going to go into specific numbers other than just to say at this point we assess it's a relatively small number.
01:14This is an indication of the dire situation that Russia finds itself in in terms of manpower on the front lines.
01:22They have experienced significant casualties in this war,
01:27and the fact that they now need to outsource for foreign troops to help support their forces inside Russia
01:38indicates that there's some serious questions in terms of their ability to continue to sustain their personnel requirements.
01:46This is something that we continue to look at in terms of the relationship between Russia and North Korea,
01:52and what kinds of benefit is North Korea deriving from that relationship.
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