US citizen sentenced to 15 years by Moscow court on espionage charges, Russian media says

(LONDON) — North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui left Pyongyang on Monday night for an official visit to Russia, North Korean state-controlled media reported, as the U.S. and NATO again denounced growing military cooperation between the two neighbors.

The Korean Central News Agency said Choe and her entourage departed Pyongyang International Airport on Monday, with Moscow’s ambassador to the country Alexander Matsegora among those who saw the delegation off.

The visit “is taking place within the framework of a strategic dialogue — following an agreement to enhance ties reached by the leaders of our countries during the June 2024 summit,” a foreign ministry statement said.

Russia’s state-run Tass news agency said Choe arrived in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Tuesday and would head to Moscow on Wednesday, citing a diplomatic source.

The visit comes as Western concerns grow about the presence of North Korea troops in Russia ahead of their expected deployment to reinforce Moscow’s troops fighting Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine and western Russia.

President Joe Biden on Monday commented on the situation after casting his vote for next week’s elections in Delaware.

“It’s very dangerous, very dangerous,” Biden told reporters.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters at a Monday briefing that the U.S. believes there are now 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, up from the American estimate of 3,000 given by National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby last week.

The troops have been sent “to train in eastern Russia” and “will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,” she said.

Singh said some of Pyongyang’s troops are moving towards Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces established a foothold in August.

“A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and we are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, near the border with Ukraine,” she said.

Singh — like Kirby and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week — framed the deployment as a sign of Moscow’s weakness.

“This would mark a further escalation and highlights President [Vladimir] Putin’s increasing desperation, as Russia has suffered extraordinary casualties on the battlefield, and an indication that Putin may be in more trouble than people realize,” she said.

“He’s tin-cupping to the DPRK, Iran, because he has failed to meet those battlefield objectives,” Singh added, using the acronym of the country’s official name — the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, meanwhile, said the U.S. has raised the issue with long-time North Korea backer China, to “make clear that we are concerned about it, and that they ought to be concerned about this destabilizing action by two of its neighbors, Russia and North Korea.”

“I’ll let them speak for themselves, but we have been making clear to China for some time that they have an influential voice in the region,” Miller added. “And they should be concerned about steps that Russia has taken to undermine stability. They should be concerned about steps that North Korea has taken to undermine stability and security.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday morning he had spoken with South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol to discuss the involvement of North Korean troops in the war.

“There is only one conclusion — this war is internationalized and goes beyond the borders of two states,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. The president said he provided Yoon with “fresh data” on the deployment of 3,000 North Korean soldiers to Russian training grounds close to the front.

Zelenskyy said the North Korean force will eventually grow to 12,000 troops — the highest estimate so far given by Ukraine, the U.S. or South Korea.

The two presidents “agreed to strengthen the exchange of intelligence and expertise” and to “develop an action strategy and a list of countermeasures in response to escalation” in collaboration with “mutual partners.”

Yoon said on Monday that a South Korean delegation will visit Ukraine this week to share information about the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia and discuss further cooperation with Kyiv.

The South Korean Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday that the country’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers that some of the North Korean generals and troops sent to Russia may have already moved to the front lines.

Yonhap said Seoul expects 10,900 North Korean troops to be sent to Russia by December.

ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman, Matthew Seyler, Justin Gomez and Max Uzol contributed to this report.

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(LONDON) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday that the international community was “surprised to see that the opposition forces moved as quickly as they did” in Syria as President Bashar Assad’s government collapsed in the face of a surprise rebel offensive.

“Everybody expected to see a much more stiff resistance from Assad’s forces,” Austin said while in Japan, during what is expected to be his last trip to the Indo-Pacific region as defense secretary.

The speed of developments, he added, “was surprising, I think, to most everybody in the international community.”

Damascus’ fall to rebel forces on Sunday marked “a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their country,” President Joe Biden said in a post to X, adding, “It is also a moment of risk and uncertainty.”

U.S. forces are already moving to suppress any hint of an ISIS resurgence in central and eastern Syria, where hundreds of American personnel have been active for several years alongside Kurdish forces to defeat the remnants of the jihadist group.

U.S. forces launched 75 strikes on ISIS targets in central Syria on Sunday to “disrupt, degrade and defeat” the group, the head of the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Austin said the strikes were designed “to keep the pressure on ISIS.”

“As this unfolds, there’s a potential that elements in the area, such as ISIS, could try to take advantage of this opportunity and regain capability,” he explained.

“We’ve been tracking ISIS as a part of our ‘Defeat ISIS’ campaign for some time, as you know, and we’ve seen cells trying to strengthen and develop additional capability out in the Vidalia Desert and those strikes were focused on those cells,” Austin said.

U.S. forces are “still evaluating the results, but I think that we’re going to find that we’ve been pretty successful,” Austin said.

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(LONDON) — Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said late Monday that his forces “will not hesitate to hold accountable” alleged war criminals and torturers that operated as part of President Bashar Assad’s toppled regime.

Jolani — whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa — and his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces are the most prominent of the rebel factions that defeated Assad’s government after 14 years of civil war. HTS and its ally rebel groups — operating under the umbrella Syrian Salvation Government — are now working to assert control of the wartorn nation.

Rebel forces offered a general amnesty for all conscripted Syrian military personnel. But Jolani said in a statement that the new authorities will seek “just punishment” for those accused of involvement in the regime’s alleged human rights abuses.

“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Jolani said in a statement posted to the rebels’ Military Operations Command Telegram channel.

“We will pursue war criminals and demand them from the countries to which they fled so that they may receive their just punishment,” he added.

Authorities will also prepare a wanted list “that includes the names of the most senior officials involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Jolani said. “We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes.”

Crowds of rebel fighters and civilians descended on Assadist prisons as the regime collapsed during a 10-day surprise offensive. Rebel forces freed prisoners in every major city they passed through on the road to Damascus.

The most infamous facility was the Sednaya prison in the capital, which is believed to have held thousands of people. The prison has previously been described as the “Human Slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International.

Footage from inside showed rebels and local residents surging through its corridors to free groups of men, women and children from cells.

A former prisoner at Sednaya — Omar Alshogre — told ABC News that the prison “is known to have women” and that detainees there have been subjected to sexual abuse.

“Some women give birth and the children born and grew up in prison,” Alshogre said. “They don’t see anything but the walls of the cell. They do not know what a ball is or a bird is or a tree. This is not knew but it’s always shocking to see the pictures of it.”

The Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, appealed for information on suspected secret areas of the prison where it feared detainees were still being held. The group said it concluded its search on Monday having failed to find any “unopened or hidden areas.”

“Specialized teams conducted a thorough search of all sections, facilities, basements, courtyards, and surrounding areas of the prison,” the White Helmets said in a statement.

“These operations were carried out with the assistance of individuals familiar with the prison and its layout,” it added. However, no evidence of undiscovered secret cells or basements was found.”

The White Helmets said there are “thousands who remain missing and whose fates are unknown.”

Assad fled to Russia as the rebels closed in on the capital. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that President Vladimir Putin will grant his Syrian ally political asylum.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists on Monday that “the people of Syria are probably going to want him to return home and stand judgment for his crimes in Syria.”

Asked whether Assad might stand trial at the International Criminal Court, Miller responded, “If he’s not going to return home from Russia, I doubt he’s going to transfer himself to The Hague, leaving Russian protection either.”

ABC News’ William Gretsky and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.

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