North Korea has moved record in the Ukraine War. A delegation of high North Korean military positions left on Monday to Moscow to finalize the sending of new soldiers to the eastern front, according to German public television . Specifically, Kim Jong-UN has committed to deploying at least 6,000 military engineers and operators in the Russian region of Kursk, border with Ukraine, in an operation that underlines the growing weight of Pyongyang in the conflict.
The exchange is not free: North Korea has already provided more than 10 million artillery and missile projectiles to Russia, according to the National South Korean Intelligence Service (NIS), in exchange for fuel, food and advanced military technology. Bilateral cooperation machinery does not stop. Moscow needs men and Pyongyang needs resources and recognition. “Both are obtaining exactly what they want with this agreement,” explains Yakov Zinberg, professor of international relations at Tokyo Kokushikan University.
“In Russia nobody wants another mobilization”
The Kremlin, beaten by hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, refuses to extend the forced recruitment to large cities. “They do not want to touch Moscow or St. Petersburg, because that could endanger the regime of [Vladimir] Putin in those nuclei, ”says Zinberg. And adds:“ When the government announces that another 6,000 North Koreans will be sent to the front, the Russians breathe relieved because they know they are safe. So sending North Koreans helps the Putin regime. ”
Pyongyang, meanwhile, does not lose the opportunity to propaganda. This Monday, North Korean state television spread images of Kim Jong-un placing a flag of the country on a coffin in a ceremony for the repatriation of supposed soldiers dead in combat. Only six coffins appeared, but Western sources of intelligence raise to 6,000 the dead North Koreans, injured or captured among the approximately 11,000 deployed so far. In another act held on Saturday in Pyongyang with a Russian delegation, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the military pact signed between Kim and Putin, the North Korean leader even appeared crying on the screen.
Military labor and muscle for Russia
Ra Jong-Yil, former Diplomatic and senior South Korean intelligence official, coincides with strategic reading: “The fundamental reason why North Korea agrees to send more troops are the casualties that Russia has suffered in the front.” According to this expert, part of the troops will also be used to rebuild infrastructure in occupied areas. “North Korean soldiers are accustomed to such tasks, because they are also used in their country.”
Beyond the battlefield, the Kim regime takes political revenue. “They like the status that gives them friends of Russia,” says Zinberg. “And I think they will continue close to Moscow even after the war ends, offering troops and workers, because they know that can bring them rewards that help underpin the regime and ensure their continuity.”
In addition, the presence of North Korean soldiers not only reassures the Russians: it also seeks to put pressure on the West. Zinberg summarizes it as follows: “The idea is to extend fear among the European allies of Ukraine, who trusted Russia to stay soon without men or material. And with an ally with nuclear weapons in Eastern Asia, United States, South Korea and Japan will also have to walk with an eye.”
