Intelligence sources say a battalion of 3,000 has been secretly training to fight against Ukraine
A battalion of 3,000 North Korean soldiers will shortly join Russian troops in fighting Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s full entry into the war.
Intelligence sources said the unit has been secretly training in Russia’s Far East ahead of deployment as part of a Russian airborne regiment.
“They are called the Buryat Battalion,” a senior Ukrainian military source told Politico. Buryatia is a remote region of Russia bordering Mongolia that the Kremlin has targeted heavily for military recruitment.
The Kyiv Independent quoted another Western intelligence source claiming that North Korea had sent 10,000 soldiers to join the Russian army.
Presenting his “victory plan” to Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky said Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un were now a “coalition of criminals”.
“This is the participation of the second state in the war against Ukraine on the side of Russia,” he said.
It comes after Russian forces last week launched a counterattack against a Ukrainian invasion into their southern Kursk region.
Ukrainian officials had talked up the Kursk invasion in August as a “strategic masterstroke” but the Institute for the Study of War said that it may have inadvertently dragged North Korea into the war.
The US-based think tank said that the Kremlin would “justify” sending North Korean soldiers into battle when the Russian parliament ratified a deal with its ally to provide mutual military support if either was attacked. This is expected within days.
The two-and-a-half-year-long war has become a battle of attrition with supply lines and military recruitment likely to prove key to victory.
North Korea has been sending artillery shells and missiles to Russia but this would be the first time that its soldiers will have gone into battle.
The announcement comes after six North Korean officers were killed by a Ukrainian artillery attack on a Russian position in occupied Donetsk this month, according to South Korea.
Analysts said that although the quality of North Korean troops would be poor, the numbers would represent a boost for Russia.
“It’s tragic to see Ukraine’s partners offering support as if they are playing some academic simulation based on theory, while Russian allies just throw in military force to help Russia win,” said Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University.
The North Korean army is estimated to have over one million soldiers, giving Putin a potentially large pool of reserves to replenish his forces. Russia is estimated to be losing more than 1,000 men per day using mass infantry tactics.
Ukraine, by contrast, has been finding it tough to replenish its front lines. Recruitment has dropped – despite increased press-gang powers – because men see a front-line posting as a one-way ticket to death or serious injury.
And this, said John Foreman, Britain’s former defence attaché in Moscow, made the North Korean troop deployment an important part of the Kremlin’s calculation for winning the war.
“It means tapping a new source of cannon fodder,” he said. “It also means using non-Russians. No one will care if the North Korean troops are killed.”
North Korean soldiers have not been seen in battle since the Cold War when they were deployed in various fringe wars as Soviet allies and proxies.
According to reports by Russian military bloggers, at least 18 North Korean soldiers have already deserted their training camps in Russia.
The US has said that it is “concerned” about the reports that North Korea may soon be joining Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Discussion about this post