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The Next Phase of War

November 29, 2024

Newsweek Europe

After thousands of elite soldiers from North Korea joined Vladimir Putin’s forces against Ukraine, how has this latest move affected the conflict?

- ELLIE COOK

CLASHES WERE REPORTED JUST DAYS AFTER SOLdiers from North Korea were deployed alongside Russian forces in the war against Ukraine. Their presence raised questions about how well the Pyongyang fighters would perform against men who have been engaging in frequent combat since February 2022, and what impact they would have on Europe's largest land war since World War II.

Around 12,000 of the country's elite soldiers were sent to Russia to bolster Moscow's war effort against Kyiv, according to South Korean officials.

Washington said they will be "legitimate military targets" and U.S. envoy to the U.N. Robert Wood said that if North Korean troops "enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will surely return in body bags." In a statement, South Korea's spy agency said on November 13: "The National Intelligence Service estimates that North Korean troops dispatched to Russia have moved to the Kursk region over the past two weeks." Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a historical agreement a day earlier that promises aid to each other if either faces "aggression." How Will Russia Benefit from North Korean Fighters? There are a few clear advantages to North Korean troops swelling Russia's ranks at this point in the war.

Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution's Center for Asia Policy Studies, told Newsweek: "North Korean troops will give Russia an immediate boost by sheer virtue of increasing Russian manpower on the front line." More than two-and-a-half years into a grueling war, both Kyiv and Moscow are searching for ways to replenish their tired ranks while sidestepping unpopular moves like a wave of mobilization or pulling down the draft age to include younger recruits.

The head of Kyiv's National Security Council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, told Ukrainian lawmakers in October that Ukraine would draft another 160,000 people into the military.