Soldiers march in a parade for the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding day in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 9, 2018. Ng Han Guan / AP

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Monday that the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia to bolster Moscow's war effort in Ukraine was a sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin's "growing desperation."

"Today, I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region," Rutte told reporters at a press conference in Brussels.

The move marks "a significant escalation" in North Korea's involvement in the conflict and represents "a dangerous expansion of Russia's war," Rutte said.

Rutte said NATO was "actively consulting within the alliance, with Ukraine, and with our Indo-Pacific partners," on the developments. He said he was due to talk soon with South Korea's president and Ukraine's defense minister.

"The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security," Rutte said.

Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe's biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine's weary and overstretched army, as well as stoking geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power dynamics. He sought to build a counterbalance to Western influence with a summit of BRICS countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing intelligence reports, claimed last Friday that North Korean troops would be on the battlefield within days. He previously said his government has information that some 10,000 troops from North Korea were being readied to join Russian forces fighting against his country.

On Monday, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said North Korea had "sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks."

Declining to comment on Rutte's statement that North Korean troops were already in Kursk, Sing said that "a portion" of the North Korean "soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, and we are increasingly concerned Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or support combat operations against Ukrainian soldiers in Russia's Kursk Oblast near the border of Ukraine."

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