What do we know about North Korean soldiers joining the Russian war? | Russia-Ukraine war News

NATO has now confirmed the presence of North Korean troops in Russia.

Although it has been rumored for months, there is growing evidence that up to 10,000 troops, along with senior staff – including three generals – have left North Korea for the Russian-held Kursk base and will soon see combat.

Here’s what you need to know about the presence of these soldiers in the conflict zone and why North Korea is joining the Russian war.

Ignorant soldiers have a lot to learn

While there is no denying the strength and resilience of each North Korean soldier, no one in the North Korean military has had the experience to fight a mechanized conflict using 21st century weapons.

Drones, sensors, and constant surveillance of the battlefield will mix with the old and proven tactics of combined arms warfare, trench warfare and the use of long-range precision weapons.

This will be important for North Korea if it intends to successfully fight against South Korea.

It is very clear to Kim Jong Un, as he watches the war in Ukraine unfold, what happens to ill-prepared or ill-informed soldiers.

The new units arrive in Russia without equipment, so they will have to learn to use Russian models. This is not a big problem here as both countries use Soviet-legacy weapons.

A challenge will be the lack of Korean speakers in the Russian army and Russian speakers in the North Korean army, making command and control an issue.

Also, modern warfare, where drones are constantly scanning the battlefield, can quickly lead to mass casualties for any units caught in the open.

Urban warfare through destroyed towns and cities requires high levels of training and coordination – not easy in a contested environment where casualties are often high.

North Korea has a lot to gain, assuming some survive the conflict.

North Korea’s benefits

The independent communist regime had successively poor harvests and food was scarce. There is also a lack of money to spend on the black market as circumventing international sanctions is expensive.

Russia can help with all of this and is reportedly paying up to $2,000 per soldier. The two countries have strong military ties and recently signed a defense treaty.

North Korea has been supplying Russia with large quantities of 122mm and 152mm artillery shells, as well as mortar rounds and rockets for many of Russia’s rocket weapons systems.

North Korean missiles have been used against Ukraine. The quality of all these weapons of war was poor, with captured ammunition sometimes failing four out of five times.

Russia can provide technical advisors to improve industrial quality and output. Russia’s need for ammunition is almost negligible and both Russia and Ukraine have realized that a continuous supply is essential if they are to continue the war.

Russia could provide assistance to the North’s nascent space program, helping to update its satellites and the rockets it delivers.

North Korea also gains something important that it lacks: experience in modern warfare.

But what does Russia get from the implementation?

Russian benefits

Russia has spent a lot of money fighting Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk and its push into Donetsk. It has succeeded in containing Ukraine in southern Russia and is advancing on Donetsk, while Pokrovsk is struggling to contain the ongoing Russian offensive on the Ukrainian city.

All this has come at a great cost.

An estimated 80,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in these campaigns. That means around 1,200 people are injured per day, an unsustainable loss even in Russia.

A military injection could be just what Russia needs, as its depleted forces are exhausted after a months-long offensive.

How will the Russians use these new soldiers?

Probably in a frontal attack, in waves of people like they have done in the past with their units.

Inexperienced soldiers are better suited to defensive positions, freeing up more experienced soldiers, well-trained sailors and paratroopers, to continue offensive operations to retake Russian territory held by Ukraine.

It is for this reason that Russia has been piling up infantry, artillery, and tanks in Kursk, with new provocations imminent.

How will this affect the conduct of the war?

The results will be near and far.

There are two questions here: first, how will Russia’s success at Kursk affect the war; and secondly, what effect will the North Korean side have on it?

Ukraine, in a lightning move, invaded and invaded Russia in the summer, caught the defenders by surprise and quickly captured easily captured Russian cities and towns.

Russia mobilized forces in Donetsk, reinforced them with units of the Pacific fleet and elsewhere in Russia, in order to finally slow down and stop the advance of Ukraine.

Now those units are in place and ready.

If Russia succeeds in returning Ukrainian forces to the border, Ukraine will lose important negotiations in the eventual peace talks.

It would also free up tens of thousands of Russian troops to fight in Donetsk, the center of the entire war, giving Russia a much higher chance of taking over an entire region, or province.

North Korea recently reaffirmed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Russia, signed in June.

The agreement is now in force and includes a mutual aid clause if either party is attacked. Ukraine’s entry into Russian territory falls under this definition.

What is Ukraine worried about?

The concern for Ukraine, and NATO, is that the first few thousand North Korean troops in Kursk will be the first of many to follow.

If Russia escalates by allowing large numbers of foreign troops into the conflict, what will stop NATO countries from committing their units to fight for Ukraine?

While small numbers of foreign volunteers are already fighting on both sides, NATO-authorized troops joining the conflict would be a very different story, putting NATO and Russian forces in direct contact.

This will greatly increase the level of conflict, with the risk of officially dragging NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russian-led alliance of post-Soviet countries, into war.

Russia has chosen to bring North Korean troops into the war, so far a few thousand but the possibility of a large number of foreign troops joining the Russian army is only a step away.

The risks of misalignment and runaway escalation are now very real, despite the new administration of the United States led by President-elect Donald Trump promising to somehow stop the conflict – assuming Russia will listen.