By John J. Metzler, October 27, 2024The rumors were true.
The apparent dispatch of elite North Korean military units to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine appears at first surprising but actually is quite logical given the historic and comradely ties between Pyongyang and Moscow. After all, North Korea’ s isolated Kim Jong-Un regime has forged increasingly close ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the cash-strapped North Koreans have shipped more than eight million 122mm and 152mm artillery shells to Russia in the past year.
Related: 10,000 North Korean troops deployed to Ukraine? Russia, China seen widening war, October 22, 2024
The story goes back to the mists of WWII and the close political and military links between Stalin’s Soviet Union and various Korean communist factions fighting the Japanese.
Many Koreans had fled to the Soviet Far East and had come under the patronage of the Soviet military. Many would formally join the Red Army; One such Korean was Kim Il-Sung who was a loyal and unquestioning Red Army Captain and was personally selected by Stalin to rule what would become the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) aka North Korea in 1948.
While there were many Korean partisan factions fighting the Japanese, one was pro-Chinese communist, others nationalist, and others pro-Soviet; It was Kim’s faction which had Stalin’s blessing and was given the mandate to rule the DPRK.
Though Moscow was influential in creating the DPRK, this move did not mitigate communist China’s strong and competing influence on the peninsula from day one. Historically China saw itself as the “Big Brother” and protector of the Korean people whether they liked it or not.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has confirmed the “beginning of the North's direct involvement” in the Ukraine war, after having discovered that North Korean troops had embarked on Russian Navy transport ships. The NIS later stated that 1,500 North Korean troops were transported to Russia between Oct. 8-13. A Seoul intelligence source was quoted saying that North Korea is expected to deploy a total of 12,000 troops, including those from the country's most elite military units to the war in Ukraine.
The North Korean troops deployed to Russia have been stationed across various locations in the Far East, including Vladivostok and Khabarovsk where they are currently being integrated with Russian military units. The North Koreans have been issued Russian uniforms, fake ID’s, and weapons.
But will these units become cannon fodder to replace ill-motivated Russian conscripts or shall hardened and tough North Koreans work together as cohesive combat units to fulfill specific missions? Recall Chechen militia units fought effectively in the early stage of Moscow’s invasion.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol and NATO chief Mark Rutte agreed that North Korea's military support for Russia in Ukraine escalates regional tensions and threatens global peace.
For Pyongyang this becomes a win-win as it follows secret defense cooperation deals made in June this year between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
North Korea will probably get paid handsomely, Moscow does not have to explain North Korean losses to Russian mothers, and the DPRK People’s Army gets genuine combat experience they have not had since the Korean War.
Keep in mind the North soldiers are always marching and drilling and their aged generals are bedecked in medals from a war which ended 70 years ago. A Ukraine deployment offers serious combat experience in the tough living conditions the North Korean troops are accustomed to. Moreover, they may not necessarily be assigned frontline fighting duties but rather to combat engineering and logistics tasks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cited intelligence reports indicating that North Korean personnel have already been deployed in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
It’s significant to recall that during the 1980’s the North Koreans sent military units to assist various African left-wing regimes. For example, in Zimbabwe (ex-Rhodesia), North Korea’s notorious 5th Brigade operated as effective shock troops to carry our ethnic cleansing for Robert Mugabe. Indeed, in many African states, including Libya, North Korean units were used as Pretorian guards to protect unpopular regimes and to effectively counter domestic resistance.
Seoul’s respected Korea Times added editorially, “Kim Jong-Un’s gamble; For Kim Jong-Un, the troop deployment to Russia is a high-stakes poker game.”
The deployment to Ukraine equally signals a high-profile power projection for the isolated DPRK and more importantly underscores a political shift that Kim Jong-Un’s regime can rock the geopolitical order with both ballistic missiles as well as classic, if still modest, military meddling.
Over the decades, Pyongyang’s regime has cynically played a balancing act between Beijing and Moscow; in recent years Putin’s Russia is in the ascendancy. For now.
John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]
