22 hours Ago By Firstpost
The Russia-Ukraine war is about to cross a dangerous threshold. If video footage is to be believed, then the ongoing war is about to see the direct involvement of a third country — North Korea. Videos released by the Ukrainian Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security show a line of North Korean soldiers receiving uniforms at a training ground in Russia’s far east.
While the audio quality of the video is poor, one could hear the soldiers communicating in Korean. Reacting to the visuals, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was seeking a strong reaction from countries who have acknowledged that North Korea is becoming more involved in Russia’s more than two-and-a-half-year-old war against Ukraine. He further added that Pyongyang’s involvement could only be harmful to everyone.
As the war drags on, we try to find out just how big North Korea’s involvement in Russia-Ukraine is was and what could be the implications of it. North Korean troops joining the Russian war? Recent videos have emerged showing North Korean soldiers receiving uniforms and equipment at a training ground in Russia. CNN has reported that the troops were asked to fill out a form, providing their sizes for hats, headgear, uniform and shoes.
In a copy of the form shared with CNN , the top of the form is written in Russian while the various size options are written in Korean. First video allegedly showing North Korean troops arriving at a Russian military base for training. pic.
twitter.com/RL0gummFPu Another video circulating on social media shows a few thousand North Korean soldiers arriving at the Sergeevka Training Ground, near the Russian-Chinese border. A voice in the background can be heard saying, “We can’t film them.
.. Here are the new reinforcements.
This is just the beginning. There are more.” Footage claimed to show Hundreds of North Korean Soldiers training at a Russian Military Base near the City of Sergeyevka in the Primorsky Krai Region of Eastern Russia, which is roughly 100 Miles from Russia’s Small Land-Border with North Korea.
pic.twitter.com/AxZ0Um48V8 The videos corroborate an earlier claim made by South Korea and Ukraine.
On October 8, South Korean Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun said in parliament that North Korea might support Russia’s war in Ukraine by sending troops. Later, on October 18, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said that Russia’s navy had ferried nearly 1,500 North Korean soldiers to Vladivostok between October 8 and October 13. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also warned about the direct involvement of North Korean troops, telling a Nato gathering last week that “thousands” of North Korean troops were on their way to Russia.
On Sunday (October 20), Zelenskyy in a video address once again raised the issue of North Korean troops. “This is no longer just about transferring weapons. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces,” he said, urging allies to step in and stop Russia from this new phase in the war.
The videos, according to Ihor Solovey, the chief of Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security, are evidence that North Korea has entered the war. “For Ukraine, this video is important because it is the first video evidence that shows North Korea participating in the war on the side of Russia. Now not only with weapons and shells but also with personnel.
" Many in Ukraine’s defence circles also note that North Korean troops will soon be fighting for Russia in the ongoing war. The head of the Ukrainian Defence Intelligence Directorate (GUR), Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov, told The War Zone that there are nearly 11,000 North Korean infantry troops training in eastern Russia to fight in Ukraine. “They will be ready to fight in Ukraine on November 1,” Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov told The War Zone .
He added that the first cadre of 2,600 soldiers would go to Kursk . However, it is unknown where the remaining North Korean troops will go. “We don’t have the full picture right now,” said Budanov.
What does Russia say? While Ukraine and South Korea maintain that North Korea’s troops will be entering the war, Russia denies these claims. “This seems like yet another fake news story,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying earlier. But even as Moscow denies these claims, other defence experts say one can’t rule out the possibility of North Korean troops being deployed for Russia’s use.
Edward Howell, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera , “We cannot rule out the possibility. We know that Russia needs manpower.” He further added that even if North Korea is not sending soldiers, “we cannot discount North Korea sending military engineers, as well as personnel to assist in monitoring and supervising the usage of North Korean weapons – which may be numerous in quantity, but of variable quality – in Ukraine”.
Has North Korea supplied Moscow with weapons? With the war grinding on, there have been claims made by Kyiv, Seoul and Washington that North Korea, led by Kim jong-un, has provided Moscow with arms and ammunition. As early as September 2022, the US had accused North Korea of providing weapons to Russia. These claims have been made by South Korea too, with South Korea’s Defence Minister Shin Wonsik telling Bloomberg News that Seoul has detected at least 10,000 shipping containers being sent from North Korea to Russia, which could hold as many as 4.
8 million artillery shells of the likes that Putin has used in his bombardment of Ukraine. In April, the UN monitors told the Security Council that debris from a missile that hit the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in January was identified to be from Pyongyang’s Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said in January that there was credible intelligence that the Vladimir Putin-led country had used at least one weapon provided by North Korea into Ukraine on December 30, 2023.
Why does this matter though? The deployment of North Korean troops to the Ukraine war is a dangerous step in the ongoing war. South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol chaired a security meeting last Friday (October 18), citing the dangers of this move. A statement later said that the current situation, in which the close military ties between Russia and North Korea have expanded beyond the movement of military supplies to the actual deployment of troops, poses a grave security threat to South Korea and the international community.
For Ukraine, the deployment is an additional burden. Solovey was quoted as telling AP , “The emergence of any number of new soldiers is a problem because we will simply need new, additional weapons to destroy them all.” But what does North Korea gain from sending its troops to the Russia-Ukraine war? A lot, say experts.
According to Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group, Pyongyang sending troops to Moscow helps the country financially. “Pyongyang would be paid well and maybe get access to Russian military technology, which otherwise Moscow would have been reluctant to transfer to North Korea,” Lankov told BBC , adding, “It would also give their soldiers real combat experience, but there is also the risk of exposing North Koreans to life in the West, which is a considerably more prosperous place.” Others note it is a boost for Kim Jong Un and his regime.
“It’s a win-win situation,” said Joseph S Bermudez Jr, a North Korea defence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. “He’s getting paid, getting access to foreign technology. He’s getting access to real-world combat information to improve his defensive and offensive capabilities.
” It’s also providing the North Korean leader a new opportunity to test its weapons , noted others. However, some note that North Korea’s direct involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war may lead South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol government to rethink its policy of not providing direct military support to Ukraine. Meanwhile, for Putin, the presence of North Korean troops is also beneficial, as it provides him with additional manpower at a time when he’s struggling with mandatory mobilisation.
Only time will tell how these new developments will shape the war. As of now, it’s a wait-and-watch game. With inputs from agencies.
