With thousands of North Korean troops now being deployed to Russia, poised for potential action against Ukraine, pressing questions arise about the effectiveness of these fighters, who have limited combat experience.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in an interview with Korean TV channel KBS that the North Korean military is already present in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and in Russia’s Kursk region, which Ukraine has controlled since August, and is currently undergoing training there, with no combat clashes with them yet.
"North Korean troops will give Russia an immediate boost by sheer virtue of increasing Russian manpower on the front line," said Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow with the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution's Center for Asia Policy Studies in a commentary to Newsweek.
With the heavy losses that Russia suffers on the battlefield, with the latest reported casualties being close to 700,000 personnel, it needs a new source for replenishing its military staff.
In Zelenskyy’s opinion, Putin wants to avoid announcing mobilization in Russia, since it hurts his rating. “Because the majority of people do not support mobilization within the state. They can only shout at Ukrainians from the couch, and they don't really want to fight,” that is why North Korea comes as a solution for Russia’s leader.
The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, though numerically small compared to Russia's overall forces in Ukraine, could have strategic implications.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, they could still "free up Russian troops to lead on the offensives and counteroffensives that Russia is focusing on," said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London.
Despite their lack of familiarity with Russia's terrain and weapons depots, North Korean troops are unlikely to require extensive training on the guns, rifles, mortars, and other explosives used against Ukraine, argued Pardo.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced during a briefing on October 31 that 8,000 North Korean troops have already been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region.
"They may be useful in pushing Ukrainian troops out of the areas of the Kursk region," added Yeo.
Zelenskyy officially acknowledged Ukraine’s incursion of Russia’s Kursk region on August 12. Since then Russia hasn't managed to take back control of its territories.
They are "certainly better trained to fight than Russian conscripts with little to no military experience," Yeo said. "But it's unclear whether Kim Jong Un would send an entire corps of elite troops."
“Given this, it is likely that the North Korean troops deployed to Ukraine are not exclusively elite forces,” Park told Newsweek. “While some soldiers may be tasked with psychological warfare operations, most are likely to fill gaps left by Russian forces and act as expendable ‘cannon fodder.'”
"If these troops are sent into direct combat and suffer heavy casualties, it would effectively amount to a large-scale massacre," Park said.
Zelenskyy said in his interview that the DPRK troops’ deployment would be very beneficial for the leader of North Korea.
“I will say frankly: the North Korean military has no combat experience in modern warfare. And so, the North Korean military will get practice in this war, understanding what a land war is. He will understand what the combat use of artillery is. Drones, FPVs, missiles, etc. will be used, respectively,”
Ukraine’s President added that he thinks the North Korean leader, just like Putin, does not care about people's lives, while the potential military practice could provide an important experience to his army.
In a statement to the Financial Times, Ukrainian intelligence officials voiced skepticism about the combat readiness of the 3,000 North Korean troops reportedly relocated to Russia's Kursk region and stationed approximately 50 kilometers from the Ukrainian border as of October 28, describing them as "inexperienced infantry."
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