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North Korean Soldiers Participation in Russian-Ukrainian War
According to a Ukrainian military intelligence source, Russia is creating a battalion of around 3,000 North Koreans, indicating a developing military partnership between Pyongyang and Moscow.
Up to now, we haven’t observed any indication of a significant formation in Russia’s Far East, and Kremlin representative Dmitry Peskov has rejected allegations of North Korean participation.
“This is not only British intelligence, it is also American intelligence. They report it all the time, they don’t provide any evidence,” he said.
It is undeniable that Moscow and Pyongyang have strengthened their cooperation in the past few months. Last week, Kim Jong Un of North Korea sent Vladimir Putin a birthday message, describing him as his “closest comrade”.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the potential involvement of North Korea in the war, while South Korea’s defense minister stated that the possibility of North Korea sending troops to Ukraine was very probable.
The numbers involved are the biggest uncertainty.
According to a military source in Russia’s Far East, “some North Koreans have recently arrived” and are now based in a military facility close to Ussuriysk, located north of Vladivostok. The source declined to provide an exact figure, only stating that the number was far below 3,000.
Military experts have indicated that they question the ability of Russian army units to effectively integrate large numbers of North Korean soldiers.
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“It wasn’t even that easy to include hundreds of Russian prisoners at first – and all those guys spoke Russian,” one analyst – who is in Russia so didn’t want to be named.
Even if they amounted to 3,000, it would not be significant in terms of a battlefield, but the US is just as worried as Ukraine.
“It would mark a significant increase in their relationship,” said US state department spokesman Matthew Miller, who saw it as “a new level of desperation by Russia” amid battlefield losses.
In June, Vladimir Putin made a toast to a peace agreement with Kim Jong Un that was focused on defense.
There is increasing evidence that North Korea is providing Russia with weapons, as shown by the discovery of a missile in Ukraine’s Poltava region.
Actually, mentions of mines and shells provided by Pyongyang go as far back as December 2023 in Telegram conversations with Russia’s military groups.
Russian troops in Ukraine have frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of ammunition, resulting in numerous soldiers being injured.
Kyiv believes that a group of North Korean troops is getting ready in the Ulan-Ude area near the Mongolian border before being sent to Russia’s Kursk province, where Ukrainian troops made a sudden attack in August.
Ukrainian Point of View
“They could guard some sections of the Russian-Ukrainian border, which would free Russian units for fighting elsewhere,” said Valeriy Ryabykh, editor of the Ukrainian publication Defence Express.
“I would rule out the possibility that these units will immediately appear on the front line.”
Ryabakh is not the only one thinking this way.
North Korea has approximately 1.28 million active soldiers, however, its army lacks recent combat experience, unlike the military of Russia.
It is uncertain how Pyongyang’s main motorised infantry units, following the old Soviet model, could be utilized in the conflict in Ukraine.
The language barrier and lack of understanding of Russian systems would complicate any combat responsibilities.
While North Korea’s military could potentially get involved in Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, they are best known for their engineering and construction skills rather than their combat capabilities, according to experts.
Both of them share the same motivations.
Pyongyang requires funds and technology, while Moscow requires troops and weapons.
“Pyongyang would be paid well and maybe get access to Russian military technology, which otherwise Moscow would have been reluctant to transfer to North Korea,” says Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group.
“It would also give their soldiers real combat experience, but there is also the risk of exposing North Koreans to life in the West, which is a considerably more prosperous place.”
Putin needs to quickly recover from the major losses suffered throughout over two and a half years of war.
Valeriy Akimenko, who is associated with the Conflict Studies Research Centre in the UK, suggests that involving North Koreans would assist the Russian leader in addressing the failure of the last mandatory mobilisation effort.
“So he thinks, as the Russian ranks are thinned out by Ukraine, what a brilliant idea – why not let North Koreans do some of the fighting?”
President Zelensky appears worried about the potential development of this unfriendly coalition.
Western boots have not been placed on Ukrainian ground in order to avoid escalation.
Nonetheless, should the rumors about hundreds of North Koreans getting ready for deployment turn out to be true, the prospect of foreign troops in this conflict might not worry Vladimir Putin as much.
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