Ukraine's spy chief Kyrylo Budanov claimed that there were nearly 11,000 North Korean infantry troops training in eastern Russia to fight in Ukraine. According to him,North Koreans would be using Russian equipment and ammunition, and the first group of 2,600 soldiers would be sent to Russia's western Kursk region, where Ukraine holds a number of settlements after launching its incursion in August.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, North Korea has shipped 1,500 soldiers to Russia for training. According to the Spy Agency, troops are training in Russian bases in Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk, and Vlagoveshensk.
Ruslan Bortnik, a well-known Ukrainian political scientist and director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, shared his opinion with News.Azby saying participation of North Korean soldiers in the war has more of an informational and political component than a real component: It seems to me that both sides are potentially using this participation to exert political pressure. Russia is threatening large contingents of North Korean soldiers, who could potentially change the course of the war in Ukraine. It is clear that if Korea sends 30, 50, 100 thousand soldiers to Ukraine, this will lead to serious problems for Ukraine and a large-scale retreat, most likely. And Ukraine is using this North Korean threat to attract Western allies to the defense of Ukraine as much as possible in order to initiate the introduction of NATO contingents into Ukrainian territory.”
Political scientist noted there is no confirmed information that the North Koreans are in Russia at all, much less are they going to change their participation in the war in Ukraine: “It is quite possible that this is a limitation of the continent of North Korean troops, who use Russia simply as a training base, and not for a war against Ukraine, but for their confrontation with South Korea, the United States in the Southeast Asian region. Just as Russia once used Belarusian training bases to train its troops, North Korea can learn modern warfare experience today in Russia. And only a small part of the North Korean troops can get directly into the Russian-Ukrainian war, for example, in the Kursk region, on the internationally recognized territory of Russia, or not get into this territory at all.”
Mr. Bortnik also draws attention to the fact that the North Koreans do not enter Russian territory with their regular weapons, with their tanks, artillery and aircraft: “And without this, even if the North Koreans enter as manpower, this means that they share the already limited Russian military reserves. And their influence, artillery and armored vehicles use Russian equipment, which is scarce. And therefore their influence on the war will be very limited. In such a situation, they will be very limited. Therefore, it is important whether there is a regular number, what is the number of North Korean troops in general, only after that it will be possible to draw some conclusions.”
Sergey Markov, a Russian political scientist and director of the Center for Political Studies, told News.Az that involvement of North Korea in military actions in the Ukrainian conflict is possible in some directions: Now we have information from Ukraine that 12,000 North Korean soldiers are ready to enter the battle against Ukraine. And from this point of view, the DPRK is already in the tide of war with Ukraine. But this is not true. In fact, North Korean soldiers are not participating in military actions yet, this has not been recorded anywhere. Not a single killed North Korean has been found, not a single captured North Korean has been taken prisoner. There is no video or serious confirmation of this. And Ukraine needs this in order to involve NATO in military actions against Russia.”
Mr Markov has lend clarity to his view regarding possibility of North Korean soldiers involvement to the war: “What is possible? Several directions are possible. Firstly, the most important thing is that the DPRK army wants to gain all the experience that the Russian army has accumulated in this super-modern war. In general, within the framework of this war in Ukraine, the combat tactics of using troops have changed dramatically. This is now a drone war. To be clear, on the line of combat contact, the so-called LBS, there are not just a lot of drones, there are now more than a dozen drones for each soldier, infantryman. It is clear that drones have changed warfare dramatically when they are used on such a massive scale. And since there are drones, the so-called EW – electronic warfare – has become of great importance. These are huge systems. There is a huge frequency struggle. Since drones, EW, they are connected to different frequencies. This is a completely new type of combat. Of course, the North Korean armies, like any other army, are very interested in gaining this combat experience. That is why you can fully believe South Korean intelligence when it says that what is actually happening is the training of one and a half thousand North Korean soldiers at military training grounds in the Far East. This is very far from Ukraine, this is on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
And there are simply Russian soldiers with combat experience, they also regularly travel from the Far Eastern District, Russian soldiers, to participate in military operations in Ukraine. They share all this combat experience with North Korean soldiers there and allow the North Korean army to become simply one level stronger. Of course, apparently, it is not enough just at the training grounds. It can be assumed that some of the North Korean officers are present at the line of combat contact in order to see how this knowledge is all implemented by Russian soldiers in actual military operations. This, I think, is the second direction, that they are watching and learning right at the front line, and not fighting.
The third direction where North Korean soldiers can fight is in the Kursk region. Since there is a treaty on mutual assistance between Russia and North Korea in case of aggression, the invasion of the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region is aggression against Russia according to all norms of international law, therefore North Korea may well have every right to send its troops to help the Russian army in the Kursk region, although so far we have no evidence of this, by the way, since North Korea recognized the bypassing of four regions of former Ukraine into the Russian Federation, then from the point of view of the treaty between Russia and North Korea And if North Korea sends its troops to help the Russian army fight in the recognized Korea and Russian territory, that is, the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, this means that this is happening by international law.
In principle, North Korean troops could do this, but there is also no evidence that North Korean troops are participating in hostilities in these regions either. The fourth direction that is possible is the participation of the engineering troops of North Korea. The fact is that there are quite large volumes of engineering work, and therefore a lot of soldier labor is needed, so to speak, to carry out engineering work. These are also very modern types of modern work.
And the North Korean army would be very interested in participating in this kind of engineering work, especially since, apparently, Russia provides North Korea with large volumes of food in exchange for this, which the North Korean leadership really needs to improve the standard of living of the population and thereby strengthen political stability and strengthen its power among the population of North Korea.
And the fifth direction is the possible use of North Korean military equipment by Russia. Today it is believed that North Korea has transferred large volumes to Russia, well, there is nothing special to see there, but North Korea has its own military developments and, of course, the North Korean leadership is extremely, very interested in these latest developments of North Korean weapons being used by the Russian army during combat operations in order to understand what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, maybe some weapons need to be urgently removed because they do not work and some weapons, on the contrary, need to be urgently made as much as possible, some weapons need to be urgently changed somehow, all this information is extremely necessary for the North Korean army and, of course, therefore, the presence of North Korean specialists is possible there who may be participating in the use of these North Korean weapons in order to primarily use this Ukrainian war as a testing ground for improving their weapons.
Five directions of the North Korean military presence are possible in Russia and perhaps in the near future we will see some evidence confirming these directions. So far, however, there is no such evidence, except that there is, that one and a half... we can trust that one and a half thousand North Korean soldiers are training at a training ground in the Far East near the Pacific Ocean.”
“We can say that Ukrainian politicians are already actively spreading information that North Korea is allegedly in a state of war with Ukraine. But so far there has been no reaction from the international community, other than expressions of concern. And this can also be partly used by the South Korean leadership to increase its military supplies to Ukraine. The fact is that South Korea has a fairly strong military-industrial complex, and the Americans are putting a lot of pressure on South Korea so that South Korea transfers weapons to the Ukrainian army. However, the South Korean leadership was afraid to do this, since it is afraid that the response to this could be the transfer of North Korean military technology to Russia. Those military technologies that will allow North Korea to make such weapons systems that North Korea can threaten South Korea. Therefore, South Korea did not transfer these weapons. Well, now such even semi-fake information from Ukrainian intelligence, Ukrainian politicians, it can be used by the leadership of South Korea in order to justify the transfer of some weapons systems to the Ukrainian army, to justify it in the eyes of Russia, but at the same time to finally fulfill the demands of the Americans, since South Korea is very dependent on the Americans, and the South Korean leadership would like to fulfill the requests and demands of the Americans if possible. And the second thing is if the Western leaders declare that North Korea is participating, they can declare this without facts, come up with what is called to say this, within the framework of such a modern policy of fake news, they can formulate this, but from this point of view, from the Russian side, anyway, there are North Korean soldiers, there are no North Korean soldiers at the front, because the Westerners do this not because they are there or not, but because they want to do something, and then they easily come up with the fact that North Korean soldiers are at the front, or they would not like it. But one of the possible reactions is that the West can declare that the conflict is being internationalized, other countries took part in the war against Ukraine, therefore NATO countries also have the right to send their military units to Ukraine in response to the fact that military units from North Korea are going to Ukraine from the Russian side.
Well, maybe a backlash too, because Western countries may become more careful in sending their so-called advisers to Ukraine. There is a joke based on the truth that after the start of military actions in Ukraine, NATO officers were attacked by an epidemic of car accidents. This is due to the fact that the number of reports that NATO territorial officers died in car accidents with the start of the Ukrainian war has increased tenfold. It is obvious in fact that they did not die in car accidents, they died in Ukraine. It is just that they are being stated to have died in a car accident at their own training grounds,” said Markov.
Political expert emphasized that thing is that if the West starts such a response, and NATO countries start a response, sending their troops, then perhaps Russia will say, well, our hands are untied, we see a direct invasion of these Western contingents on the territory of Ukraine, so our hands are untied, and the North Korean army, it is several times larger in terms of the number of soldiers than the armies of NATO countries in Europe: “And North Korean soldiers, they are of course significantly less technologically equipped, but they are ready to fight in prison groups, apparently much more energetically and with self-sacrifice than soldiers are ready to fight, say, from the Polish, German, French or British army.
Therefore, if attack aircraft, infantrymen, on one side the French and Poles, and on the other side the North Koreans, fight each other, and the North Koreans will have all the technological equipment from the side of drones, fortifications, missile launchers of aviation, from the side of the Russian army, then we can assume that the Poles, the French, the Polish and French attack aircraft will find themselves in a very difficult situation.
Therefore, it is difficult to guess what the international reaction might be. And there are already so many sanctions on North Korea that no new sanctions against North Korea will have any effect.
Therefore, it is difficult to guess what the international reaction might be. And there are already so many sanctions on North Korea that no new sanctions against North Korea will have any effect.”
