North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the United States and the West are using the Ukrainian military as "shock troops" to fight Russia and risk triggering a global conflict, state media reported Monday.
Seoul and Washington have accused the nuclear-armed North of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine, with experts saying Kim was eager for Moscow's advanced technology, plus battle experience for his troops, in return.
Pyongyang has denied the deployment, and Kim did not mention it in a speech to battalion commanders carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The US and the West are using the conflict in Ukraine to "expand the scope of their military interventions globally", Kim said.
They are also trying to "enhance their combat experience, with Ukraine being used as shock troops" against Russia, he said.
Washington's "continuing military assistance to Ukraine... raises the concern of World War III," he said.
Kim vowed his country would bolster its nuclear weapons defence "without limit".
His warning comes after Seoul said last week that North Korean troops had already begun "engaging in combat operations" alongside Russian forces near the border with Ukraine.
Kim "is likely keeping in mind the possibility of additional deployments to support Russia's war in Ukraine," said Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
Last week, North Korea ratified a landmark defence pact with Russia, formalising months of tightening military bonds between two nations that were Communist allies throughout the Cold War.
In exchange for sending troops, the West fears Russia is offering North Korea technological support that could advance Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.
The reclusive state recently fired a salvo of ballistic missiles and tested a new solid-fuel ICBM.
The nuclear-armed state's deployment of troops to Russia has led to a shift in tone from Seoul, which has resisted calls to send lethal weapons to Kyiv so far but recently indicated it might change its no-provision policy. BSS
Bd-Pratidin English/ARK
