Ukrane is preparing to fight North Korean troops in the Russian region of Kursk on Wednesday, as the entry of a second nuclear power in Russia’s war against Ukraine threatened to escalate and broaden the conflict.
The United States Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that North Korean troops were in Kursk, where Ukraine launched a counter-invasion almost three months ago.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said there was “a small number [of North Korean troops] in the Kursk oblast, with a couple of thousand more that are almost there or due to arrive imminently”.
A senior South Korean official told reporters on Wednesday that about 3,000 North Korean troops were being moved close to the front lines.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte confirmed the deployment on Monday. “Today I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and that North Korean army units are deployed to the Kursk region,” he told reporters.
He called it “a significant escalation in the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] ongoing involvement in Russia’s illegal war”, and “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war”.
Ryder confirmed that North Korea had sent a total of 10,000 troops for training in eastern Russia. South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence last week suggested the number could be as high as 12,000.
The extent to which these troops could help Russia’s war effort is unclear because Russian personnel requirements are enormous.
Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Pavlyuk said via Telegram on Sunday that an estimated 10,520 Russians were dead or wounded in the preceding week.
In Kursk alone, Russia had suffered 17,800 casualties over the past three months, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Telegram, including 6,600 killed.
North Korea could not make an appreciable difference, said researcher Olena Guseinova in a new study for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation last week.
“The regime, in perspective, could potentially provide Russia with an additional 3 to 4 units, comprising 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers of various skills,” she concluded. “Even in such a case, however, North Korean assistance is unlikely to change the overall course of the war.”
The reasons, she said, were political and military. “The deployment of a large number of soldiers poses challenges in controlling their movements on the ground, heightening the possibility of desertion or defection,” Guseinova wrote, requiring “security personnel to closely monitor the troops”.She also said, “North Korea cannot afford to deplete its valuable human resources, particularly given that its primary adversary, South Korea, has a population twice its size.”
US messaging on the terms of Ukrainian engagement with North Korean forces was fuzzy, as officials appeared to come to grips with the implications of Washington openly encouraging engagement of a nuclear adversary through proxies.
Asked on Tuesday if he supported Ukraine attacking the North Koreans, US President Joe Biden said: “If they cross into Ukraine, yes.”
Asked if Ukraine was at liberty to use US weapons against North Korean troops, Ryder said: “We’ve been very clear that Ukraine is able to employ those capabilities to defend their sovereign territory from threats that are either emanating from across the border or from inside Ukrainian territory.”
On Wednesday, South Korea appeared to pull back from previous suggestions it might assist Ukraine militarily, in retaliation for the North’s assistance of Russia.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said Seoul would not send 155mm shells to Ukraine, citing sources in the office of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
A week earlier, an unnamed South Korean presidential official was quoted by Reuters telling reporters: “We would consider supplying weapons for defensive purposes as part of the step-by-step scenarios, and if it seems they are going too far, we might also consider offensive use.”
South Korea will send an intelligence delegation to monitor the military effectiveness of North Korean troops.
There was caution among Russia’s friends, as well.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted a BRICS summit in Kazan last week, in an attempt to show that Russia has support in the world.
The Kazan Declaration, however, signed by China, India, Brazil and others, emphasised a peaceful resolution to the conflict, “consistently with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter”.
Article 2 of the Charter calls on nations to “settle their international disputes by peaceful means” and “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.
Russia’s ally in Europe, Belarus, appeared to deny that it might follow in North Korea’s footsteps.