The news that up to 12,000 North Korean troops could be about to fight alongside Russian forces adds an exotic element to the war in Ukraine – but it is hardly surprising. Back in June Vladimir Putin journeyed to North Korea and signed a mutual defence pact with, perhaps, the most hyper-armed regime in the world.
Kim Jong Un, lifetime ruler of the Democratic People Republic of Korea, has been desperate to join Russia’s fight in Ukraine. He has provided much needed medium artillery rounds, and now is supplying two infantry brigades, according to President Zelensky this week. Among them are 1,500 special forces, allegedly.
South Korea’s intelligence agency has produced satellite pictures of groups of up to 3,000 North Koreans at two training sites north of Vladivostok. Squads of interpreters have been hired as the forces are expected to move forward to join Russian forces fighting round Kursk and Pokrovsk by early December.
The enlistment of the North Koreans is a clear sign that Vladimir Putin has no intention of opening peace talks this side of Christmas – and possibly not any time in the foreseeable future. This dashes the recent talk in Nato circles – and in Kyiv – that negotiations could start soon.
Vladimir Putin is now moving to widen international support for his war in Ukraine, and destabilisation operations further afield. Ukraine is no longer “the special military operation,” but now the keystone in the plan to confront the Western powers of America and Nato on several fronts. So far, he has only managed to build a coalition of the reluctant to support Russia, with the exception of North Korea and Iran, now his two main arms suppliers.
This autumn the Russian forces have started to push forward across the central front round Pokrovsk and are beginning to squeeze the Ukrainian forces holding the enclave round Kursk inside Russia itself, seized earlier this summer. They are progressing at terrible cost – losing an average of 1,300 killed and seriously injured per day. In two and a half years Russia has lost over 600,000 killed, missing and maimed. Moscow is raising between 25,000 and 30,000 fresh troops per month – but this barely keeps up with the toll of combatants lost on the battlefields.
Russian troops are often the victims of their own tactics – or lack of them. Infantry push forward in repeated attacks, covered by huge amounts of artillery fire. These are the old methods of Soviet armies, relying on brute force of numbers. There is little attempt at what is known as combined arms operations, the combination of ground troops, tanks, and close support from the air, that forms the standard methodology of Nato armies.
The most intriguing question in this odd couple alliance is what does Pyongyang get out of it?
The North Korean brigades now about to deploy are better trained, prepared and motivated than most of the Russian battalions they’ll work with, according to Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute. Besides, the language barrier with their Russian colleagues is likely to prove insurmountable.
North Korea and Kim Jong Un can easily spare the troops – for it has 1,320,000 under arms – the world’s fifth largest army. It has a reserve force, including militia and gendarmerie of over six million – which means about a third of the population is available for immediate call up. Social conditions across the board are grim, with continuous reports of near starvation. So, the most intriguing question in this odd couple alliance is what does Pyongyang get out of it?
The simple answer is food, fuel oil, and money – and, most likely, help with their ballistic missile technology. This means improvement to missiles designed to reach almost the entire territory of the United States. This has so alarmed South Korea, that it is likely now to start supplying Ukraine with state of the art howitzers and rocket systems – some superior to the HIMARS from the US.
This week Putin has hosted the expanded BRICS grouping, formed twenty years ago by India, Russia, Chin, Brazil – at Kazan in Tatarstan. He aimed to find alternative international fiscal mechanisms, and beside get as many of this group to back his war aims in Ukraine. Narendra Modi, for one, chose to attend Kazan rather than the Commonwealth meeting in Samoa.
However, Xi Jinping insisted at Kazan that “a rapid de-escalation” was now needed. War in Ukraine should not be spread to “third parties,” and “adding fuel to the fire” should be avoided.
Vladimir Putin appeared not to listen, or had the interpretation conveniently switched off. By inviting closer support, and more weapons from North Korea, as well as Iran, he shows every intention of adding more fuel to his fire. The war in one form or another could dominate our lives for the rest of the decade – by his way of thinking.
Robert Fox is defence editor
