The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has, for the first time, sent combatant units abroad, to aid Russia in the war in Ukraine. As noted in the Joint Statement on the DPRK’s Deployment of Troops to Russia this development indelibly connects the Indo-Pacific and European theaters,

North Korea has lost more than 3,000 troops in about two months of combat in Russia’s Kursk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday — and he criticized world leaders for doing “almost nothing” to counter Moscow’s alliance with Pyongyang.