SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has much to gain and little to lose for the blood price his soldiers are likely to pay on the front lines of a major offensive against Ukraine, South Korean analysts say.
North Korean troops are “already engaging in combat” in Russia’s Kursk region against an invading Ukrainian force, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service said Wednesday. The Pentagon said this month that some 10,000 North Korean troops had been dispatched to help drive the Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.
Ukrainians seized a chunk of the Russian region in a shock cross-border offensive in August. Kyiv’s gambit embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin but failed to relieve Russian advances in the fighting for control of Ukraine’s occupied Donbas region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the Kursk incursion as a valuable bargaining chip in peace negotiations.
The unprecedented foreign deployment of so many troops from North Korea represents a gamble for Mr. Kim, but many think the odds are firmly in his favor. His troops will obtain valuable battlefield experience and security, and he will strengthen the economic and diplomatic ties he has cultivated with Russia.
“For North Korea, there is much more to gain than to lose,” Doo Jin-ho, chair of the global strategy division at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, told foreign reporters in Seoul. “They will try to maximize their benefits … at the risk of their own readiness and at the risk of mass casualties.”
The Biden administration shares South Korea’s concerns. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Russian-North Korean military cooperation was a “two-way street” that could increase the danger for South Korea and other U.S. allies in the region.
Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told the Reuters news agency in an interview Wednesday, “We don’t have anything definitive … in terms of nuclear technology going from Russia to [North Korea], but obviously, we have an overall concern about the developing relationship between the two countries.
“Not only because of what technology could be being transferred but also just the growing relationship and the fact that [North Korea] is assisting Russia, not only with their developing defense industrial base but also obviously with the 10,000 troops or so that are in Russia right now,” she said.
Pros and cons
The shipment of some 8 million artillery shells and tactical rockets to Russia has depleted Pyongyang’s armories, and the removal of troops has weakened the regime’s defenses at home, Mr. Doo said.
Given the colossal body count of the Ukraine conflict, North Korea’s forces could suffer significant losses. Neither side releases official figures, but casualties are estimated to be hundreds of thousands.
Although Mr. Kim’s troops are disciplined, cohesive and fit, they are inexperienced in modern warfare, in joint operations with foreign troops and in combat in the flat, open terrain of Ukraine. North Koreans also have little experience with the drone-dominated form of warfare they are likely to encounter.
North Korea will secure some clear advantages from being the first third party to join the 33-month-old conflict, Mr. Doo said.
He said Russia could provide “a security umbrella” for the primarily isolated Kim regime, similar to the role the U.S. military plays in South Korea. The Kremlin could also offer a “gateway” for North Korea to participate in global organizations such as BRICS, led by the emerging powerhouse economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
Russian economic and financial aid will also cushion the pain of the deployment. Mr. Doo estimates the economic benefits for North Korea’s depleted national treasury will total $714 million. He and other South Korean analysts estimate the number of North Korean troops in Russia to be 13,000, a small fraction of an army with 1.2 million service members.
The troops will share combat experience across a military that has not fought a full-fledged war since the end of the Korean conflict in 1953. “They are there for a rotation,” Mr. Doo said. “In a given year, they will have around 20,000 soldiers.”
Mr. Kim is likely betting the experience will boost defense innovation at home and the quality of the arms his soldiers carry. North Korea will “gradually be able to switch to Russian-made weapon systems that have proven their reliability,” Mr. Doo said.
He said Russian military hardware likely on “Kim’s bucket list” includes reentry vehicles that bring the warheads on ballistic missiles safely into Earth’s atmosphere, reconnaissance satellites and related ground control systems, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Quality questions
The Russian deployment was “planned meticulously and with a specific plan in mind,” and outside analysts have questions about the composition and capabilities of the North Korean soldiers dispatched to the Russian operation, Mr. Doo said.
Considerable reporting has focused on the “Storm Corps,” comprising 200,000 North Korean special forces in light infantry, amphibious commandos and airborne brigades, but analysts say their role in the fighting has not been confirmed.
Yang Uk, a security specialist at Seoul’s Asan Institute, doubts that Mr. Kim risked sending 13,000 of his commandos abroad in a lopsided force.
“I think maybe one brigade is from the Storm Corps and the other three are line infantry brigades from regular corps,” he said.
U.S. sources report that Russian troops have trained the North Koreans in trench clearing, which is not a typical mission for special forces.
Infantry combat “would chew up your men and waste manpower,” said Steven Tharp, a South Korea-based retired U.S. Ranger officer. “They should be attacking strategic targets in the rear.”
A trench line, he said, “is not a strategic target.”
“Forming a penetration or striking a second line is their specialty,” Mr. Doo said. “What they are known for are penetrations in mountains and oceans, but Kursk is mainly flat land.”
In 1968, a 31-member commando force penetrated the Demilitarized Zone and nearly assassinated the South Korean president. South Korea’s military was stunned by the commandos’ physical fitness, fieldcraft and discipline, but Mr. Doo said times and technologies have changed.
“In the past, … it was physically about how fast you could run and how strong you are, but now it is about drone technologies, which is something North Korean troops are probably not that well accustomed to,” he said.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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