Why China Won't Stop Ally North Korea From Fighting Ukraine

China has remained mum about the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia in recent weeks. The U.S. and its allies view the development, which followed the signing in June of the first Russia-North Korea military agreement since the Cold War, as a dangerous escalation of Vladimir Putin's 33-month war against Ukraine and tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Yet China is likely unsettled by this new phase of Moscow's fast-growing alliance with Pyongyang, which since last September has shipped thousands of containers believed to contain munitions and other matériel to help replenish Russian forces' stocks.

The Pentagon estimates there are now 11,000 to 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia, with 10,000 already stationed in the border region of Kursk. Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive there in August and now hold some 250 square miles of territory.

Read more