North Korea transferred not only parts of its ground army to the russian federation. According to the South Korean government, Pyongyang has also sent fighter pilots who can fly on planes that are in service with the russian army.
According to Newsweek, an unnamed South Korean government official told South Korean TV Chosun about it.
According to the official, a group of North Korean pilots arrived in russian Vladivostok in September. This may be related to training on russian warplanes entering North Korea.
It is also possible that russia, which is experiencing a lack of pilots, could turn to North Korea for help.
According to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, North Korea had more than 900 combat aircraft in service as of 2021. The most powerful of them were purchased from the Soviet Union, they include Su-25 attack aircraft and MiG-29 fighters.
Su-25 attack aircraft have been actively used by the russian army since the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to the monitoring site Oryx, which tracks the losses of the russian army, since February 24, 2022, the russians have lost 114 aircraft, including 34 Su-25 attack aircraft.
If the information of the South Korean authorities is true, then russia will be the first foreign mission for North Korean pilots in the last 50 years. They fought in the Vietnam War and fought alongside Syria and Egypt during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on October 22, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that North Korea is preparing to send two units, the number of each of which is 6,000.
It will be recalled that the representative of North Korea at the UN called the accusations about Pyongyang sending its soldiers to participate in the war against Ukraine groundless.
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