Why Thousands of North Koreans Are Fighting in Russia

North Korea has 1.28 million active military personnel, with 1.1 million of them in the army, according to estimates from South Korea.Photographer: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

BLOOMBERG | Published December 18, 2024

(Bloomberg) — For more than a year, Russia has leaned on its increasingly close ally North Korea for supplies of artillery shells and ballistic missiles to prosecute a grinding war in Ukraine. In October, the partnership entered a new phase as Pyongyang dispatched thousands of soldiers to bolster Russia’s armed forces. Ukrainian and western officials have described their appearance on the battlefield as a major escalation by Moscow. North Korea’s foreign minister promised her country would stick with Russia until “the day of victory.”

How many North Korean troops are we talking about?

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Nov. 4 that as many as 10,000 North Korean troops were in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine. They’ve been helping Russian forces try to dislodge Kyiv’s forces from parts of the region that they captured in August in a surprise incursion. The Kremlin provided the North Koreans with fake identity documents to make them appear to be Russians, South Korea’s intelligence service said.

What’s the caliber of North Korean soldiers?

North Korea has 1.28 million active military personnel, with 1.1 million of them in the army, according to South Korean estimates. They have rarely been battle-tested since fighting in the Korean War ended more than 70 years ago. The bulk of North Korea’s troops rely on “increasingly obsolete equipment” dating back to the days of the Soviet Union, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its 2023 review of the world’s militaries.

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Several hundred North Korean troops have been killed or wounded in clashes with Ukrainian forces, US officials said on Dec. 18, without providing specific numbers. Ukrainian military intelligence reported that at least 30 North Korean soldiers were killed in assaults on three villages in Kursk.

The North Koreans appear nonetheless to have become a significant asset in Russia’s campaign. In mid-December, large numbers of North Korean troops operating with fire support from the Russian army attacked two Ukrainian assault brigades based near a captured town in the Kursk region, according to prominent Ukrainian military watcher Yury Butusov.

What’s in it for North Korea?

In exchange for the arms it’s already sent Russia, the regime of leader Kim Jong Un has received aid that has propped up North Korea’s economy and advanced its weapons programs, according to the US and South Korea. As a reward for sending troops, Kim could probably count on getting more help. South Korean lawmakers briefed by the country’s spy agency said Russia is expected to give economic benefits in return.

North Korea has so far sent Russia weapons worth as much as $5.5 billion, according to a study by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation released in October, which did not factor in aid for dispatching soldiers. That figure for the munitions transfers is equal to about one-fifth of North Korea’s yearly gross domestic product, and if Putin paid that amount — either in cash or goods — it would represent the biggest boost to North Korea’s economy since Kim took power more than a decade ago.

Furthermore, deploying troops to Ukraine gives North Korea an opportunity to test its military strategies and equipment against a combatant that uses weapons similar to those deployed by its foe, South Korea. Since the Korean War wound down in 1953, North Korea has rarely sent its troops abroad. On the occasions when it has, it generally dispatched small forces, for example when it sent an estimated 3,000 military personnel to Angola to take part in its civil war in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Kim’s regime sent about 800 military personnel and laborers to aid Syria’s government in 2019, according to Seoul-based specialist news service NK News, citing a United Nations document. North Korea also conducted limited flying missions during the Vietnam War to assist in the fight against US and South Vietnamese forces.

General Charles Flynn, the head of US Army Pacific, raised concerns about the prospect of the North Korean military taking lessons from combat in Ukraine. “There’s some learning going on,” he said at a Center for a New American Security event in October. Flynn said in April that Russia’s use of North Korean missiles is giving Pyongyang a rare chance to test its weapons in combat and perhaps improve their performance.

What’s in it for Russia?

More boots on the ground for a fight in which the country has suffered enormous casualties. Any new mobilization in Russia would be deeply unpopular. At the same time, it wouldn’t say much for Russia’s claim to be the world’s second-strongest army if it has to rely on North Korea for soldiers.

Why are North Korea and Russia so close?

As leading democracies worked to isolate Kim and Putin for military moves seen as threatening global security, the two turned to each other for help. North Korea holds vast stores of munitions that work with Russian equipment, and Russia has food, energy and raw materials that North Korea desperately needs. When Putin visited Kim in Pyongyang in June, the two reached a deal to come to each other’s defense if either was ever attacked, in a show of defiance against the US and its partners and the sanctions they’ve imposed. “North Korea assures Russia that it will always be with the Russian comrades until the day of victory,” North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said on Nov. 1 when she met Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Russia.

How could this go wrong for Pyongyang and Moscow?

No North Korean leader has ever faced a situation in which the country’s troops suffered mass casualties fighting in a war abroad. One of North Korea’s guiding policies is putting the military first. The armed forces permeate almost all aspects of society. If the number of North Koreans killed or wounded in Ukraine were to mount, Kim could face rare scrutiny by the military brass that underpins his authority. He’d also risk stirring discontent among the country’s citizens, for whom it’s the norm

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SOURCE: www.bloomberg.com

RELATED: Indoctrinated, loyal and well trained: Don’t underestimate North Korean soldiers in Russia, some experts say

Footage circulated online on Oct 18, 2024 shows North Korean troops training in Russia. CNN has geolocated the video to a training range in Sergeyevka, Primorsky Krai, Russia. EyePress News/Reuters

CNN | Published December 18, 2024

Little is known about the North Korean troops deployed to support Russia in its devastating yearslong war in Ukraine – or what exactly they will be ordered to do – and their presence hasn’t even been officially acknowledged by Moscow or Pyongyang.

US, Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence says the North Koreans have already engaged in combat operations, joining a Russian force of tens of thousands to carry out an assault on Ukrainian positions in Russia’s western Kursk region. Speculation has been rife about how these troops will fare.

North Korea has seen “several hundred” casualties — both killed and wounded — in the Kursk region since sending thousands of forces to Russia in October, a senior US official said Tuesday.

According to Ukraine, at least 30 North Korean soldiers were killed or wounded in fighting over the weekend alone near villages in Kursk close to the Ukrainian border. One Ukrainian unit reported that North Koreans – wearing different uniforms from the Russians – had launched infantry attacks using the “same tactics as 70 years ago,” in an apparent reference to the Korean War, where waves of infantry were used.

Pyongyang’s soldiers lack real-world battle experience and will face unfamiliar terrain in a brutal, modern war theater – one that has wrought chaos and horror for both sides as the dead pile up across the front lines.

“If I was going to describe their capability more broadly and not think about the kit that they had, I would tell you that these are not battle-hardened troops, they haven’t been in combat before,” the US official said, adding their assessment was that casualties included “all ranks” including leaders at command-and-control nodes,.

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SOURCE: www.cnn.com