By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia's envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday questioned why its allies like North Korea could not help Moscow in its war against Ukraine given Western countries claim the right to help Kyiv.
Vassily Nebenzia faced a blunt argument at a Security Council meeting from the United States, Britain, South Korea, Ukraine and others, who all accused Russia of violating U.N. resolutions and the founding U.N. Charter with the deployment of troops from North Korea (DPRK) to help Moscow.
"Supporting an act of aggression, which completely violates the principles of the U.N. Charter, is illegal," South Korea's U.N. Ambassador Joonkook Hwang said. "Any activities that are entailed with the DPRK's dispatch of troops to Russia are clear violations of multiple U.N. Security Council Resolutions."
Some 10,000 North Korean troops were already in eastern Russia and it appeared likely that they would be used to support combat operations in Russia's Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday.
Nebenzia said Russia's military interaction with North Korea does not violate international law. Russia has not denied the involvement of North Korean troops in the war, which it has been waging in Ukraine since February 2022.
"Even if everything that's being said about the cooperation between Russia and North Korea by our Western colleagues is true, why is it that the United States and allies are trying to impose on everyone the flawed logic that they have the right to help the Zelenskiy regime ... and Russian allies have no right to do a similar thing," Nebenzia said.
Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya responded: "None of the countries that provide assistance to Ukraine is under Security Council sanctions."
"Receiving assistance from the fully-sanctioned North Korea is a brazen violation of the U.N. Charter," he added. "Sending the DPRK troops to support Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is a flagrant violation of international law."
North Korea has been under U.N. Security Council sanctions since 2006 and the measures have been steadily strengthened over the years with the aim of halting Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
North Korea has not acknowledged the deployment of troops to Russia, but said any such move would be compliance with international law.
"If Russia's sovereignty and security interests are exposed to and threatened by continued dangerous attempts of the United States and the West, and if it is judged that we should respond to them with something, we will make a necessary decision," North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Song Kim told the council.
"Pyongyang and Moscow maintain close contact with each other on mutual security and development of the situation," he said.
However, deputy U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: "Should DPRK's troops enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will surely return in body bags. So I would advise Chairman Kim to think twice about engaging in such reckless and dangerous behavior."
(This story has been corrected to fix the name of the US envoy to Robert Wood, not Woodward (NASDAQ:WWD), in paragraph 13)