Minister Kim Yong-hyun said, "North Korean troops are just bullet-bearing mercenaries, not dispatched troops."

Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said in a parliamentary audit of the National Defense Committee held at the National Assembly today that it is appropriate to say that the North Korean military mobilized in Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not a dispatch but a mercenary.

Minister Kim said that dispatch usually maintains the command system of the country's military and proudly operates with military uniforms, markers and flags, but the North Korean military disguises itself as Russian military uniforms and moves according to orders without any operational authority under Russian control.

He then evaluated it as nothing more than a bullet-bearing mercenary and pointed out that Kim Jong-un sold his people's troops to an illegal war of aggression to solidify the dictatorship.

The National Intelligence Service previously predicted that more than 3,000 North Korean troops have moved to Russia so far, and that the number will reach 10,000 by December.