North Korea is not only supplying weapons to Moscow, but is also sending military personnel to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared on October 17 in Brussels after meeting with European leaders and NATO defense ministers. He claimed Pyongyang was preparing to send up to 10,000 troops.
Besides, On October 8, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun signaled in parliament that North Korea could support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by sending troops.
Zelensky has repeatedly warned against an alliance between North Korea and Russia, saying that relations between Ukraine and its allies must be strengthened to avoid a “major war.”
Ammunition and North Korean troops
Sabrina Singh, deputy spokeswoman for the US Department of Defense, suggested in July that there was no indication that North Korean troops were being sent to Ukraine. But in 2023, Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) reported that a North Korean contingent had arrived in the country’s occupied territories.
Andriy Kovalenko of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said in early October that the North Korean military was monitoring munitions supplied to Russia in the Donetsk region, adding that they were accompanying deliveries and supervising their use by the Russian military.
According to Ukrainian media, there have even been North Korean casualties. More than 20 soldiers, including six North Korean officers, were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile attack near Donetsk on October 3.
An anonymous HUR representative recently told Ukrainian media that the Russian army had acquired a “special Buryat battalion” that also included North Koreans. The Buryats are a Mongolian ethnic group originating from southeastern Siberia.
Moscow remains silent
Russia has not yet confirmed that North Korea will participate in the war against Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov has limited himself to saying that there is “deep strategic cooperation in all areas, including security,” in reference to a defense pact signed between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the Russian president. Vladimir Putin in June 2024, which provides for mutual military assistance.
On the other hand, DW could not find any evidence on Russian social media that North Korean soldiers had been deployed to Russia or Russian-occupied Ukraine. Messages purporting to provide evidence of the involvement of North Korean troops in the Ukraine war were dubious.
Temporary mutual benefits
Andrei Lankov, a professor of history and international relations at Kookmin University in Seoul, said it was “quite plausible” that North Korean troops would be sent to participate in Russia’s war against Ukraine.. He told DW that it would make sense for Putin to reinforce the Russian army with North Koreans, as it would allow him to avoid another mobilization campaign in Russia.
Looked at from the Russian point of view, Putin is waging a war that is generally popular in Russia, but only on the condition that the majority of the population stays out of the fighting and does not have their “lives disrupted.” everyday because of the war,” he explained.
Lankov, originally from Russia but an academic in South Korea for 30 years, says that there were fewer and fewer men willing to risk their lives, not even for the generous economic benefits that joining the army offered. He says that what the Russian army needed most now are infantry units. He explains that, in return, North Korea wanted money. “Right now, A private in the Russian army receives $2,000 a month plus a joining bonus that can reach $20,000. “If North Korea receives half that amount for each soldier it contributes, Pyongyang will be very happy.”
The second reason for Pyongyang’s willingness to provide troops is Russia’s offer to foot part of the bill in the form of technology, suggesting that North Korea has done some hard bargaining on this point. “Money alone is not enough,” says Lankov. “Some of it will have to come in the form of the advanced technology that North Korea wants but has not been able to get. Normally, Russia would never agree to provide this kind of technology to such an unstable country, but they have no choice.”
The final reason for North Korea’s desire to have frontline troops in Ukraine is the skills and knowledge it will bring to the table in a real scenario, Lankov suggests. “This is a modern conflict between two advanced military powers over a long period of time,” he says. “The world has not seen a conflict like this for 80 years and North Korea wants to gain fighting experience in this type of war.”
Although the loan of potentially thousands of North Korean troops suggests a new level of military cooperation between the two allies, Lankov hopes the exchanges will not last long. “It will take relationships to a new level, but only for a certain period of time,” he says. “Once the hostilities in Ukraine end, everything will go back to where it was before and it will be business as usual. “These two countries are very different and largely incompatible, so there will be very little that North Korea produces that Russia will want.”
North Korea has already sent troops to other armies
North Korea has sent troops abroad before. Angola, for example, accepted some 3,000 military “advisors” in the 1970s and 1980s. These troops were responsible for training local troops, but also fought against South African forces.
North Korea also sent troops to Uganda, Chad and Mozambique, and also trained South West African Liberation Army guerrillas. to carry out a long insurgency against the South African government until the end of the apartheid.
In general, North Korea has tended to send instructors, says Fyodor Tertitsky, a North Korea analyst based in South Korea, explaining that North Korean soldiers rarely participated in military operations outside their country. Another notable exception was the deployment of pilots to support the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. However, he explains that the statement by the South Korean Minister of Defense gave credibility to the hypothesis that North Korean troops could be deployed to participate in Russia’s war against Ukraine and he is forced to take it seriously.
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