North Korea has supplied Russia with artillery ammunition and KN-23 ballistic missiles, while sending officers to monitor their combat use. The military cooperation between the two countries is reaching a new level: regular troops from the DPRK are disguising themselves as Buryats and Yakuts for deployment to the Kursk region, writes the Financial Times (FT), citing video materials from South Korean intelligence.
Ukrainian forces may face fighters from the elite "Storm Corps" of the 11th Army of North Korea. This well-equipped and highly skilled mobile light infantry is significantly different from regular North Korean soldiers, most of whom have not undergone adequate combat training, said FT senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul, Ko Men-hen.
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine recorded on October 23 that the first units of the North Korean army, trained at eastern Russian training grounds, had arrived in the combat zone in the Kursk region. They have been allocated several weeks for combat coordination with the occupiers.
According to estimates from Ukrainian military intelligence, the number of North Korean troops deployed to Russia is about 12,000, including 500 officers, among them three generals from Pyongyang. The control of military training and adaptation of mixed combat groups is overseen by Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.
Senior researcher on land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in the UK, Jack Watling, expressed confidence in a conversation with FT that the assistance from North Korea will create problems for Ukraine. The North Korean contingent may be well-coordinated and possess high combat morale.
Representatives of Western intelligence report that Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to conduct another wave of mobilization and wishes to fill the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces with volunteers for substantial sums. In the case of the Pyongyang soldiers, Russian command will face challenges in controlling them, but experience working with pro-Iranian forces and militias during the Syrian civil war will come in handy. Russia will create a working model for the North Korean soldiers based on this, the expert believes.
Watling believes that Russia aims to put Ukraine in a situation where maintaining the front line in the Kursk region becomes impossible for them.
"Ukraine is constantly paying the price for holding territories in the Kursk region," he said.
The level of professionalism of the "secret special forces" is unknown, possibly just slightly better than other regular units. The regime's propaganda under North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has released video footage of special forces demonstrating their physical fitness by breaking bricks with their hands. Whether these actions characterize the soldiers as true professionals remains unclear.
"What equipment will they be working with? If it has to be brought from North Korea, we may have to wait up to four weeks. It will take time to thoroughly master Russian equipment. However, in conditions where the Russian Armed Forces themselves feel a shortage of tanks and armored vehicles, it is unclear where to source them for another country's army," emphasizes Seleznev.
According to Dmytro Zhmaylo, the executive director of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, the North Korean army is primarily sending Special Operations Forces (SOF) to the Kursk region, with their total number estimated at up to 200,000 personnel. SOF is one of the most secretive structures in the country, and almost nothing is known about them.
He is supported by former UN Group of Experts Coordinator on North Korea, Hugh Griffiths. In an interview with France24, he stated that North Korean troops will suffer a devastating defeat in Ukraine.
North Korea possesses one of the largest armies in the world, but its soldiers have not participated in real combat. It is in Ukraine that Kim Jong-un's propaganda of North Korea's "invincibility" will burst like a soap bubble and undermine the country's morale, he is convinced.
"Ukrainians will bomb them, you will see the defeat of North Korea... They will die, achieve no success, and certainly will not reach Kyiv in Russian tanks. Nothing good awaits them there," noted the expert.
According to Dmytro Zhmaylo, Russian authorities want to involve North Korean troops in their region to demonstrate strict compliance with the mutual military assistance agreement. Pyongyang is interested in sending soldiers to war to gain combat experience, as Ukrainian forces are using Western weaponry.
However, the involvement of a third party in the conflict is a serious escalation in the full-scale war that the West must respond to.
"Compare the sizes of Ukraine and Russia. Is it that Russia cannot handle us, that it resorts to the help of North Korea? If we are to fight against two countries, this issue needs to be raised and we should ask our partners about a response. Perhaps we should revisit [French President Emmanuel] Macron's idea of sending a NATO contingent," the expert reflects.
The placement of North Korean combat units in the occupied territories of Ukraine is just a matter of time. If Western democracy once again shows weakness, Putin will understand that he can act more aggressively, he believes.
The ultimate goal of North Korea sending troops to the war in Ukraine is to secure a commitment from Russia to intervene on its side in any conflict on the Korean Peninsula. In such a case, South Korean and American high-ranking military officials will have to reconsider all established war models.
It should be noted that the U.S. is discussing the possibility of direct military intervention if North Korean troops enter the war in Ukraine on the side of the Russian army. Such a scenario would be a red line for the United States, said Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
South Korean intelligence previously reported that North Korea plans to send 12,000 soldiers to Ukraine. Seoul acknowledges this step as a serious threat to security.