The Strangest Development Yet in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Sure, let's add some North Koreans to the mix, why not?

Photo by Thomas Evans on Unsplash

The U.S. presidential election has put the Russo-Ukrainian War on the media back-burner in the United States in recent weeks. That does not mean that it is a frozen conflict, however. In fact, the latest news is, well, downright bizarre — the possibility that North Korean soldiers are being deployed to fight on the Russian side.

The New York Times’ Eric Schmitt, David E. Sanger and Anatoly Kurmanaev provide a decent write-up of the current state of play:

North Korea has sent troops to Russia to join the fight against Ukraine, a major shift in Moscow’s effort to win the war, U.S. officials confirmed on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III called the North’s presence a “very, very serious” escalation that would have ramifications in both Europe and Asia.

“What exactly are they doing? Left to be seen,” Mr. Austin told reporters at a military base in Italy after a trip to Ukraine. He gave no details about the number of troops already there or the number expected to arrive….

said intelligence analysts were still trying to discern whether the troops were moving toward Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials insist they are headed there, and Ukraine’s defense minister was quoted on Wednesday saying he expected to see North Korean troops in Kursk, the Russian territory that Ukraine has occupied, in the coming days.

Mr. Austin’s statement came as American intelligence officials said they were preparing to release a trove of intelligence, including satellite photographs, that shows troop ships moving from North Korea to training areas in Vladivostok on Russia’s east coast and other Russian territory farther to the north.

For two weeks, there have been reports of the movements, fueled by the Ukrainian and South Korean governments, that more than 12,000 North Koreans were training to fight alongside Russian soldiers.

In a parallel explainer, the NYT’s Choe Sang-Hun reports that. “Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the existence of an arms deal, or reports of North Korean troops in Russia.” But Ukraine’s military defense intelligence service (HUR) reported on Thursday that North Korean units had entered the combat zone in Russia’s Kursk region. Furthermore, if the U.S. is prepared to publish intelligence refuting Russian and North Korean denials, then the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World will proceed on the assumption that it is actually happening.

It should be remembered that North Korean forces are not the first foreign soldiers to enter this particular fray. On the Ukrainian side of the conflict, “an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 such foreign fighters are believed to be active, with most serving in three battalions of the International Legion,” according to a Washington Post report from a year ago. On the Russian side, the Times reports that Russia, “has expanded recruitment from prisons and from poor nations such as Cuba and Nepal.” Additional fighters from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and breakaway provinces like Abkhazia have joined the fray on the Russian side as well, according to Wikipedia.

One could argue that this is merely the latest development in a conflict that is turning into the Spanish Civil War of the 21st century. Still, this seems like a pretty significant escalation of DPRK involvement, which leads to the obvious question: why?!

For Russia, the incentives are pretty clear. As the Times points out, “Moscow is straining to maintain its costly offensives in Ukraine without destabilizing Russian society. U.S. officials estimate that Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month, just enough to replace the dead and the wounded. Some military analysts believe the Kremlin will have a hard time maintaining that pace without resorting to another round of unpopular mobilization.” The only time Putin ordered a mobilization it led to a significant exodus of young Russian men, weakening Russian society.

It makes sense that Putin — who always puts off painful decisions like this one until the absolute last minute — would be willing to taken in DPRK forces to delay another mobilization. There is also a pretty decent chance that DPRK forces will be better trained than the convicts that Russia has been throwing into the Ukrainian meat grinder. Furthermore, even if Russia is formally denying it, such a move would remind Western backers of Ukraine that Russia has allies too. In a world where even its efforts to show that it’s still a respected global power are not terribly convincing, even small gestures like this can help advance that narrative.

For North Korea, the incentives are a little less clear. As the Times notes, “one of the central mysteries American and South Korean intelligence agencies are focused on is what Mr. Kim may be receiving in return for contributing troops, even though officials say the United States has not picked up intelligence suggesting that Russia agreed to pay for the mercenaries, or provide oil or much-needed military technology in return.”

Still, there are some obvious benefits. It builds on the mutual defense pact the two countries signed earlier this year. It reminds the Russians that without the provision of DPRK artillery shells the war could have taken a more dire turn for Moscow.

More importantly, it sems as though this gives North Korea entrée into what it needs with respect to ballistic missile technology. Kim Jong Un very much wants to trot out real deterrence vis-à-vis the United States. More accurate missiles that could hit the United States would certainly do that. It is not hard to imagine that Kim Jong Un believes that would be worth the price of a couple of thousand of dead North Korean soldiers.

As a revisionist state, Russia seems happy to enable other revisionist actors that weaken the West.  Furthermore, Russia’s vulnerability to long-range Ukrainian missiles is becoming readily apparent. So, by the way, is Putin’s loss of credibility in terms of drawing red lines.  If Putin cannot deter the West from amping up its weapons shipments to Ukraine, it can try to remind the United States of its vulnerability to long-range missiles as well.¹

There is a logic to this kind of DPRK-Russia cooperation. But I really have to wonder if Russia has truly thought this move through. Tens of thousands of malnourished DPRK troops does not buy Putin that much time. More importantly, increased cooperation with North Korea gives South Korea a pretty big incentive to reciprocate. And, sure enough, that’s exactly what the ROK leadership is saying. According to Choe’s story:

On Tuesday, the office of the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, accused the North of “driving its young people into an unjustifiable war as mercenaries.”

It warned that it could take “phased countermeasures” to respond to the growing “military collusion” between Moscow and Pyongyang. Such steps could include supplying both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, a senior South Korean official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

So far, Seoul has limited its direct support for Ukraine to humanitarian and financial aid and nonlethal military equipment, such as mine detectors.

Far be it for me, a non-security person, to have the final word on this subject, but this seems like a bad deal for Russia. If the choice is between:

1. Accepting North Korean troops with the understanding that South Korea will respond with sending advanced weaponry to Ukraine; or

2. The status quo.

I, for one, would go with the status quo! Ukraine is really, really good at taking advanced military weaponry and using them to wreak havoc on Russian forces! Why take any non-pivotal action that risks an outcome that leads to a better-armed opponent?!

Then again, my preferences are clearly not Vladimir Putin’s preferences. He has been acting like he has an expiring window of opportunity ever since 2022. This move seems akin to that worldview.

1. A bonus for both Russia and the DPRK? Negative headlines in the U.S. right before the presidential election. The Trump campaign can continue its song and dance of, “none of this would be happening during a Trump administration!”