A Russian government ministry and a public university said separately this week that online reports alleging sexual assault by North Korean soldiers near the front lines of the Ukraine war were unfounded.
The Kursk regional office of Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry denied that a teacher from Moscow had recently been the victim of a "crime" in the western region, where Western intelligence assessments said North Korean troops were helping the Russian army fight off a monthslong cross-border raid by Ukraine's armed forces.
The ministry's statement on Tuesday described the rumors as "false information," and was followed the next day by a response from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. In a post on VKontakte, one of the country's largest social media platforms, the university in Moscow said the widespread reports on Telegram were "fake."
Reports by multiple Russian-language news sites this week carried a screenshot resembling an official statement on the university's website, which purportedly accused a group of intoxicated North Korean soldiers in Kursk of sexually assaulting a faculty member who had been dispatched to provide interpretive services.
The incident, which Newsweek could not independently verify, was alleged to have taken place in the village of Kromskie Byky, 10 miles from the front lines of Ukraine's raid into the region, and about 20 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border.
The accusations were made in a recorded statement showing the alleged female victim, with the footage accompanying the written account in online reports.
However, the Russian university said members of its Korean language department had not been sent to Kursk to provide translations.
"There are only two Korean language teachers in the philological faculty. The voice in the video, as well as the physique, does not match any of the teachers," the state university said.
It also shared a Russian news report denying the presence of North Korean military personnel in Russia.
The Russian Internal Affairs Ministry and the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia did not immediately respond to written requests for comment before publication.
A month since South Korea first disclosed that tens of thousands of Kim Jong Un's soldiers were being sent to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war, Seoul said Pyongyang has also transferred howitzers and rocket launchers to Moscow, in addition to millions of rounds of artillery shells.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service said around 11,000 North Korean soldiers are now stationed in Kursk as the war approaches its third full year.
Dmytro Ponomarenko, Kyiv's top diplomat in Seoul, said recently that North Korea could deploy up to 15,000 troops in Kursk and send a similar number to the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
At a regular briefing on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh did not confirm reports that the U.S. had permitted Ukraine to launch U.S.-supplied weapons into Russian territory. However, she said Kim Jong Un's forces would be legitimate targets.
"[W]e've said very clearly that the introduction of DPRK soldiers into the fight, especially when it comes to Ukraine's sovereignty, means they are a fair game in that fight," Singh said, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
North Korea's embassy in Beijing and the Russia's Foreign Ministry could not be reached for comment.
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