First shots were fired after troops crossed the border last week. Now there’s reports of landmine casualties.
On Tuesday, South Korea’s military again fired warning shots as North Korean troops breached the border separating the enemy nations for the second time this month ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrival in Pyongyang for a summit with Kim Jong Un.
In what appears to be a separate incident, Seoul’s military authorities also announced Tuesday that several North Korean soldiers working in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) dividing the countries have recently been injured or killed due to “several landmine explosions” in the area, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
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Large numbers of North Korean troops have been appearing in frontline areas since April, according to the news agency, where they have carried out tasks like building roads, constructing walls, and planting mines. It’s not clear when the explosions took place or how many soldiers were injured.
“The North Korean military seems to be overdoing its work despite a number of mine explosions during the creation of barren land in the frontline area and landmine operations,” an unnamed official with the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told local media, according to NK News.
The JCS said between 20 and 30 North Korean soldiers carrying work tools started over the Military Demarcation Line inside the DMZ at around 8:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday, according to Yonhap. The South Korean military broadcast warnings and fired warning shots, the JCS said, at which point the encroaching troops from the North returned to their side of the border.
The incursion was deemed to be accidental, the JCS concluded, similar to a June 9 incident in which warning shots were also fired when Pyongyang’s troops strayed over the border.
The latest incidents come at a time of heightened tensions between the neighboring countries on the Korean Peninsula, which technically remain at war as a consequence of the 1950-53 Korean War concluding with an armistice instead of a peace treaty.
They also emerged as Putin headed to Pyongyang Tuesday for his first visit to North Korea in 24 years. Portraits of Putin and Russian flags were displayed in the streets of Pyongyang, according to the Associated Press, while a banner hung on one building that read: “We warmly welcome the President of the Russian Federation.”
In an op-ed published in the North Korean Rodong Sinmun newspaper and reproduced on the Kremlin’s website ahead of his arrival, Putin thanked his hosts for their “strong support for the Russian special military operation in Ukraine” and their willingness to “resolutely resist the desire of the collective West to prevent the formation of a multipolar world order based on justice, mutual respect for sovereignty.”
Putin also specifically attacked the United States, claiming Washington, D.C. had “provoked” the war in Ukraine and then “rejected all our attempts to peacefully resolve the situation.” He went on to complain that Russia’s Western “opponents” are “threatening to send their military contingents to Ukraine” while simultaneously “trying to exhaust our economy with ever new sanctions.”
Russia is currently facing sanctions from the U.S. and other Western nations in relation to the war in Ukraine, while North Korea is similarly under U.N. Security Council sanctions over its nuclear weapons testing and missile development.
In his op-ed, Putin said Russia and North Korea will establish trade and payment mechanisms “that are not controlled by the West” and “jointly resist illegitimate unilateral restrictions.” Despite the current sanctions, Putin wrote, all attempts to “contain and isolate Russia” have “failed.”
“It is gratifying that our Korean friends—despite many years of economic pressure, provocations, blackmail and military threats from the United States—are equally effective in defending their interests,” he wrote.
