North Korea: How Elite Soldiers Could Change the Ukraine War

With thousands of North Korean troops expected to deploy to Russia against Ukraine, the question arises as to how well the fighters, who lack combat experience, will perform.

It is unclear how many casualties Pyongyang's armed forces will suffer and how many of the country's elite soldiers North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be willing to take part in the bloody conflict.

Ukrainian, South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said in recent weeks that North Korea is sending between 10,000 and 12,000 troops to Russia to bolster Moscow's war efforts against Kiev.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he had told South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol that 3,000 North Korean fighters were at “Russian training grounds in the immediate vicinity of the war zone.”

South Korean intelligence said earlier this month that an initial group of 1,500 fighters traveled to Russia and were provided with Russian military uniforms, Russian-made weapons and fake documents showing the fighters lived in regions of Siberia. More troops are expected to arrive soon, the agency said in mid-October.

Washington has said they will be “legitimate military targets” and U.S. envoy to the United Nations Robert Wood said that if North Korean troops “enter Ukraine in support of Russia, they will certainly return in body bags.” .”

How will Russia benefit from North Korean fighters?

There are some clear advantages to having North Korean troops bolstering Russia's ranks at this point in the war.

Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Center for Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, said Newsweek: “North Korean troops will provide an immediate boost to Russia simply by increasing Russian manpower on the front lines.”

More than two and a half years into a grueling war, both Kiev and Moscow are looking for ways to replenish their weary ranks while sidestepping unpopular moves such as a wave of mobilization or lowering the draft age to include younger recruits.

The head of Kyiv's National Security Council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, told Ukrainian lawmakers earlier this week that Ukraine would draft an additional 160,000 people into the military.

Russia in particular has relied heavily on tactics called “meat grinder” attacks in Ukraine, recording very high casualties through infantry-led attacks designed to overwhelm defenses. It has led to slow but steady increases in eastern war-torn Ukraine this year. Russia said on Wednesday it had captured Selydove, a town in the eastern Donetsk region on the way to Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub for Kiev.

According to Ukraine, Russia has suffered almost 700,000 victims since February 2022. Western estimates put Moscow at around 610,000 dead and injured, with September the bloodiest month so far.

A senior Estonian intelligence official said in late October that Russian losses could reach 40,000 this month. Figures from the US suggest that Moscow can take on around 30,000 new recruits every month.

Although the current number of North Korean troops would represent only a tiny percentage of Russian forces in Ukraine, they could still “free up Russian troops to lead offensives and counteroffensives,” according to the U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. Russia is focused on that,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, professor of international relations at King’s College London.

Because they come from North Korea's highly militarized society with an extensive army and regular training exercises, the fighters will likely be effective in supporting Russian operations, Pacheco Pardo said Newsweek.

Despite their ignorance of Russian territory and weapons stockpiles, they are unlikely to need extensive training on the weapons, rifles, mortars and other explosives that Russia uses against Ukraine, Pacheco Pardo argued.

“They could be useful in driving Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region areas,” Yeo added.

Kiev's surprise invasion of the Russian border region of Kursk almost three months ago surprised Russia and many international observers. Moscow has still not managed to wrest Kiev's control over the area it controls in Russia, the so-called Ukrainian Frontland, although in recent weeks it has recaptured some of the territory captured by Ukraine over the summer.

One school of thought is that Ukraine's Kursk Offensive – widely viewed as a success by Kiev and an embarrassment for Moscow – actually advocated using North Korean troops to push Ukrainian troops back to the border.

The Kiev military intelligence agency GUR said on Thursday that it had discovered North Korean troops in Kursk for the first time the day before.

At least some of the thousands of fighters are believed to be “stormtroopers,” or members of Pyongyang’s special forces trained for infiltration and assassination. According to South Korean officials, Pyongyang has about 200,000 members of its special forces, according to the CSIS think tank.

They are “certainly better trained for combat than Russian conscripts with little to no military experience,” Yeo said. “But it is unclear whether Kim Jong Un would send a full corps of elite troops.”

“Based on what other militaries are doing, these deployed troops will be well trained and equipped because they have an immediate, “real world” mission rather than an on-call mission, CSIS assessed.

“Many of those who go through the North Korean military end up in non-military roles like agriculture and construction without having any intensive combat training at all,” says Ji Hyun Park, a North Korean defector now a senior fellow in human security at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy.

“Against this background, it is likely that the North Korean troops stationed in Ukraine are not exclusively elite troops,” Park said Newsweek. “While some soldiers may be tasked with psychological warfare missions, most will likely 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 massacre on a large scale,” Park said.

The North Korean leader may be less likely to send more elite fighters if the number of casualties is anywhere near that of Russian troops, Yeo added.

What's in it for Pyongyang?

For North Korea, these fighters are gaining combat experience that they haven't experienced on a large scale in decades since a 1953 armistice ended the Korean War.

North Korea could use its personnel to use weapons in combat conditions, test them and figure out how to optimize their equipment.

Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with a significant number of missiles and millions of shells. According to the head of Kiev's military intelligence, his support makes North Korea Russia's most dangerous ally with which Ukraine has to contend. In recent months, Kiev has persistently attacked ammunition depots storing North Korean ammunition.

stumbling blocks

As a member of North Korea's insular society, there could be problems with communication and smooth cooperation with the Russian armed forces, Yeo said.

“Although North Korean troops are trained at Russian military facilities in the Far East, differences in language, culture, training and war doctrine could limit the effectiveness of North Korean forces until they are better integrated with Russian units,” Yeo said.

Footage published online by Russian and Ukrainian sources appeared to show North Korean soldiers at a Russian training site in the far eastern region of Primorye, which borders North Korean territory. The Wall Street Journal, Citing analysis of videos circulating online and unnamed intelligence officials, he reported that the North Korean soldiers were young and appeared to have slim builds, suggesting a degree of hunger in the secretive nation's ranks.

“North Korean troops are characterized by unwavering loyalty to their leadership and a unique psychological resilience fostered by the regime” to give Pyongyang's personnel a sense of “absolute sacrifice for the state,” Park said.

“However, this psychological preparation may not translate effectively into practical resilience in the active combat scenarios currently being seen in Ukraine, where they would face modernized and highly capable adversaries in unfamiliar territory,” Park said.

North Korea could also face morale problems if its troops start recording casualty rates approaching those of Russian fighters, Yeo added.

Yeo noted that Pyongyang also faces problems related to desertion and defections.

A Ukrainian government-backed hotline for Russian soldiers seeking to surrender as prisoners of war has published an appeal to North Korean soldiers urging them “not to die senselessly on foreign soil.” The message was published in Korean.

Ukrainian media reported in mid-October, citing anonymous intelligence officials, that 18 North Korean soldiers had already deserted near the border with Ukraine. This could not be independently verified.

“It is possible that some North Korean soldiers who surrender or are captured by Ukrainian forces may not want to return to Russia or North Korea,” Yeo argued. “The withdrawal of North Korean special forces would be an embarrassing blow to the Kim regime.”