The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, claimed this Wednesday to have “evidence” that North Korea has sent soldiers to Russia to fight.
Last Friday the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) had already said that 1,500 soldiers are in Russia, although other sources told South Korean media that the final figure could be closer to 12,000.
A day earlier, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, had intelligence information stating that until 10,000 North Korean soldiers They could join the war.
This Wednesday, Austin did not give details and explained that there are analysts evaluating the situation.
“What exactly they are doing remains to be seen,” he added, after ensuring that, if North Korean soldiers fight on the side of Moscow, a “very, very serious problem” arises that “will have an impact not only in Europe, but also in the Indo-Pacific.”
Austin called the North Korean action a “further step” after the regime Kim Jong-un supply weapons to Russia, and warned that it could face consequences.
Ukrainian military intelligence sources specified last week that the Russian army is forming a unit of North Korean troops.
South Korea, for its part, considered the alleged sending of North Korean troops to Russia a “serious security risk” and its president, Yoon Suk-yeolindicated that the international community must respond with “all available means.”
On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that the regime of Kim Jong-un supplies ammunition to his Russian allyafter the recovery of a missile in the Ukrainian Poltava region.
Moscow and Pyongyang have also increased their cooperation in recent months.
Last week, the North Korean leader congratulated the Russian president on his birthday Vladimir Putinwhom he called his “closest comrade”.
Earlier this week, Putin presented a bill to ratify a military pact he sealed with Kim, according to which Russia and North Korea will help each other in case of “aggression” against either country.
A Russian military source in East Asia told the BBC’s Russian service last week that “several North Koreans” had arrived and were stationed at one of the military bases near Ussuriysk.
Seoul intelligence also published aerial photographs of Ussuriysk and Khabarovsk, where hundreds of North Korean troops were gathered, and another photo of the port of Chongjin, in North Korea, where a Russian ship was reportedly transporting North Korean soldiers.
Your integration
The South Korean intelligence service stated that North Korean troops are training in Russian bases in Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Vlagoveshenskin the eastern end of the country.
The NIS claimed to have discovered that since August North Korea has sent Russia 13,000 cargo containers with anti-armor projectiles, missiles and rockets.
He specified that Russia had received up to 8 million projectiles 122 mm and 152 mm.
However, some military experts believe that Russian military units will have difficulty incorporating North Korean troops into their front lines.
North Korea has approximately 1.3 million active soldiersbut, unlike the Russian army, theirs has no recent experience in combat operations.
Additionally, there is the obvious language barrier and lack of familiarity with Russian systems, which would complicate their role in the war.
“They could protect some sections of the border between Russia and Ukraine, which would free up Russian units to fight elsewhere”, assessed Valeriy Ryabykh, editor of the Ukrainian publication Defense Express.
And he added that he rules out “the possibility that these units appear immediately on the front.”
Pyongyang has followed the old Soviet model with its armed forces, but it is unclear how its force of infantry units could fit into the war in Ukraine.
That doesn’t stop North Korea’s military from participating in Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, but experts credit the North Koreans more for their engineering and construction skills than their combat skills.
Complementary interests
Russia and North Korea share complementary incentives: Pyongyang needs money and technology, while Moscow needs soldiers and ammunition.
“North Korea would receive generous funding and perhaps have access to Russian military technology, which Moscow would otherwise have been reluctant to transfer to it,” Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group center, told the BBC.
Putin has, according to analysts, an urgent need to compensate for the losses suffered during more than two and a half years of war.
Valeriy Akimenko of the UK Conflict Studies Research Center believes the deployment of North Koreans would help the Russian leader cope with the problematic previous round of mandatory mobilization.
For his part, President Zelensky has clearly expressed concern about how this hostile alliance could evolve.
There are no Western soldiers on the ground in Ukraine for fear of escalation with Russia.
However, if reports of North Koreans preparing to deploy are confirmed, it would indicate that Putin welcomes the idea of foreign soldiers fighting against Ukraine.
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