North Korean Troops in Russia: What Are They Doing There?

Source: Rodong Sinmun

On October 17, South Korean intelligence disclosed that several thousand North Korean troops had apparently begun training in Russia, presumably for deployment to Ukraine. This was later confirmed by other reporting, including the US Department of Defense. There are several reasons why such an arrangement might be considered beneficial by both countries—and concerning to the rest of the world. After the two governments signed a mutual defense treaty in June 2024, this news highlights the cooperation but raises questions about why the world’s third-largest army, which outnumbers its adversary considerably and has been promoting a narrative that it is winning, needs help at this time. The appearance of North Korean forces in Russia points to both a deepening of security cooperation between dictatorships and increasing desperation on the Russian side.

What Is in It for Russia

Obviously, part of the answer is that Russia is not winning, at least not to the degree that Vladimir Putin would have the world believe, but it should also be increasingly clear that Moscow really needs help. Generally, there are three ways in which the North Korean deployment can help Russia. The most mundane way is labor. Despite the North Korean troops involved being labeled “special forces,” they are less experienced in battle and generally trained on older equipment than the Russian and Ukrainian forces that have been fighting for over two years. The North Koreans might be seen as more suited to low-skilled labor than combat roles. Employing North Koreans for manual labor could free up Russians for military duties and help keep defense industry production. Russia is already experiencing labor shortages and has tried to recruit workers from South Asian countries to fill vacant jobs.

Russia also can make a strong case for employing North Koreans in combat roles. An expert on the Soviet military once described the Russian way of war as “playing chess with two sets of pawns,” meaning always having a larger number of expendable troops than an adversary.[1] For centuries, Russian tactics have been based, in part, on being able to absorb more casualties than any opponent. Reports from the front in Ukraine would seem to bear this out, with evidence that conscripts are taking casualties at much higher rates than “contract” soldiers. It could be that with casualty rates high from recent offensive operations, the Russian leadership would prefer to have someone else in the line of fire. In a war of attrition, the deciding factor will not be who controls various villages, but which side can tolerate the toll of deaths and wounds the longest. Russian generals know their history and are aware that in 1917, the Russian army, despite numerical superiority, grew tired of wasting lives and essentially stopped fighting. By having North Koreans do some dying in place of Russians, the Kremlin may hope to delay a similar collapse.

What’s more, the employment of foreign forces, whether in combat or combat support, points to a level of desperation in Moscow. Having failed to unseat the Ukrainian government in 2022, Russia turned to a strategy of attrition aimed at portraying the war as unwinnable for Ukraine to try to persuade governments supporting Kyiv that they were wasting resources. All the while, Russia has made regular use of nuclear threats to raise the perceived risk of helping Ukraine and encouraged the idea that Ukraine should be forced to swallow a “land for peace” arrangement. While nuclear threats have led Western governments to place limits on assistance to Ukraine, Moscow’s strategy has not had much success. Since late 2023, Russian forces have generally taken the offensive, making minor territorial gains at a heavy cost. By mid-2024, the Russian army was advertising higher bonuses for enlistment, indicating that recruiting could be growing more difficult.

All these developments could indicate that the Kremlin is feeling pressure to end the war in the coming months before it runs short on troops and materiel to maintain its offensive. Adding contingents from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) could provide more time for the strategy to work and for Ukraine’s supporters to abandon Kyiv. Western opponents of aid to Ukraine will point to the presence of DPRK forces as further evidence that the war is going badly, and Russian aggression should be considered a fait accompli and renew calls for a ceasefire on Russian terms.

What Is in It for North Korea

It is also important to consider what North Korea could gain from sending its soldiers to die in Ukraine. Apart from any sort of monetary payment, deployment to Russia would allow DPRK troops to train with and perhaps use in combat, more modern equipment. Any such benefit may be limited by the way Russian commanders would expect to use troops perceived as expendable but could remain an incentive to Pyongyang. Benefits from training and combat experience, however, would only be useful for those troops that make it home, and, given the Russian army’s lackluster battlefield performance, would be unlikely to change the military balance in Korea. Sources from the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) have reported that Russia has found the DPRK soldiers to be lacking an understanding of modern warfare. Facing a pronounced qualitative disadvantage relative to the ROK, the North is likely receiving more advanced military technology from Russia as payment for North Korean lives. With an uneven record in tests over the last two years, ballistic missile technology may be high on Kim Jong Un’s wish list. Such missiles have relatively little conventional military value but, as delivery systems, are key components of North Korea’s nuclear option.

Conclusion

Improvement to both North Korea’s conventional and nuclear forces should be of serious concern for stability on the Korean Peninsula. An alteration of the military balance could lead to more aggressive adventurism from Kim Jung Un. Although importing North Korean forces to fight in Ukraine seems a fairly desperate measure, it has important longer-term implications in Korea and beyond. Russia is fighting a war of aggression in which it routinely uses nuclear threats to achieve its aims. Should it succeed with assistance from nuclear-armed North Korea, it will set a disturbing precedent for nuclear-aided aggression that could be repeated in Northeast Asia.


  1. [1]

    Said in a conversation with the author.


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