TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson has condemned North Korea for supplying weapons and troops to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, saying growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow could also affect security in the Indo-Pacific.

A possible transfer of advanced military technology from Russia to North Korea in return for aid in Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine would pose a direct threat to Japan, South Korea, the United States and other nations in the region, Jonson said during a recent visit to Tokyo.

"Thousands of combat troops deployed by the DPRK to Russia are a dangerous expansion of the ongoing support to Russia, and it also risks degrading security on the Korean Peninsula," he told a NATO-Japan symposium at the University of Tokyo on Tuesday, using the acronym the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

Military experts say North Korea wants submarine and improved missile technologies. Pyongyang could deploy as many as 100,000 troops to assist Moscow in the nearly three-year-old war, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"There is a risk, of course, that Russia will share technology with North Korea and it is enhancing military capabilities," Jonson said. "This is quite obvious that the two regions are very closely interlinked."

The 32-member NATO is also concerned about China's deepening relations with Russia, he said, calling Beijing a "decisive enabler" of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson "condemned third parties who are facilitating and thereby prolonging Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," according to a joint statement released after their meeting Wednesday in Tokyo.

In Tuesday's event, Kazuhiro Kobayashi, a Japanese parliamentary vice defense minister, said recognizing that the security of Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific is inseparable, the Ishiba government "is deeply concerned about the expansion of China-Russia, Russia-North Korea cooperation."

To boost deterrence and response capabilities, Kobayashi called for further security coordination between NATO and its four Indo-Pacific partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

Referring to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's skepticism about NATO, including threats to withdraw Washington from the Atlantic alliance, Jonson said Europe "has to be more prepared to take a larger responsibility for its own security" and the crisis in Ukraine.

Given that 23 NATO member states have now fulfilled the commitment of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense -- up from three in 2014 -- Jonson said things are moving on the "right trajectory," and that "more needs to be done" to ensure the alliance's continued military readiness.

Jonson believes the Indo-Pacific poses long-term, defining security challenges for the United States, alluding to U.S. strategic competition with China.

"We share the assessment in one way or another, and the best way to alleviate that is that Europe rises to become serious about being a security provider both inside Europe and also in the Indo-Pacific," he said.