North Korea enters the Russo-Ukraine war

What are friends for, if not to help in times of need? We imagine that’s roughly what Vladimir Putin said when he asked Kim Jong Un for a few thousand North Korean soldiers to help his three-day invasion of Ukraine, which is now heading into its third year. 

Anyway, North Korea’s supreme leader seems to have said yes. 

Here’s what we know. 

There’s now plenty of evidence that North Korea has been supplying Russia with weapons for its invasion of Ukraine. But in June, Putin and Kim went a step further and signed a security pact that included a mutual defence clause.

There were then surprising reports earlier this month of a half dozen North Korean officers turning up dead in Russian-occupied Ukraine after a Ukrainian missile strike.

And then on Friday, South Korea’s main intelligence agency released satellite images of what they say are Russian naval transports carrying up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia earlier this month. The Ukrainian government then released footage of what appear to be North Korean soldiers receiving uniforms and equipment in Russia.

Why is North Korea doing this?

Well, that’s a question folks have been asking for all kinds of reasons for decades. But here are a few reasons why the hermit state is now helping Russia invade a neighbour:

• Regime security: This has been a driver for the Kim family for the three quarters of a century it’s been running North Korea. In this latest case, deepening ties with a power like Russia is a way for the paranoid Kim family to feel secure against perceived threats at home and abroad — plus, escalating the war in Ukraine could help divert international attention away from home.
• Sanctions: When you’re the ~4th most sanctioned country on the planet (after Russia, Iran, and Syria), there’s a lot of value in having a friend on the UN Security Council willing to wield its veto power in your favour.
• Options: The Kim family doesn’t have a lot of other options — North Korea is technically China’s only treaty ally, but that’s a lopsided relationship, with China effectively treating the North Koreans like a problematic client state. So by cosying up to the Russians, Kim likely also hopes for more ‘hand’ with China.
• Payment: There’s no word yet on any specific terms, but Kim already earns much-needed foreign currency by sending civilian workers abroad, plus he needs help with his heavily-sanctioned ballistic, nuclear, and satellite programs.
• Why not: Kim will feel insulated from any blowback due to his distance from Ukraine, not to mention his stranglehold on all facets of life back home. And given his state of almost complete isolation anyway, what difference will a few more sanctions make?

But will this change anything? 

It’s still early days and we’re working from limited information (that’s geopolitics), but here’s another way to look at this: Putin is now losing an average of 1,000 soldiers in Ukraine each day. So this latest assist from North Korea arguably just expands Putin’s replenishment buffer by 12 days. That alone is not meaningful.

And that’s before you factor in the major linguistic, cultural, and operational barriers at play, plus the fact these troops have never seen active combat. Oh, and there are already reports of North Korean troops abandoning their positions in Russia.

So… the lasting impact of this move might actually be to nudge the needle the other way: there’s long been speculation democratic South Korea, a defence industry powerhouse, could further support Ukraine. And that speculation is now growing in light of rival North Korea actively seeking crucial real-world battle experience in Ukraine.

So just yesterday on a call with NATO’s new chief, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged (🇰🇷) to “take steps to revitalise security cooperation among South Korea, Ukraine, and NATO.”

And the implications of that are already clear to Moscow, which immediately despatched its ambassador in Seoul in an attempt to assure (🇰🇷🇷🇺) South Korea it has nothing to worry about.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

Sometimes humour can be the most effective way to articulate a truth, and one joke has been doing the rounds lately, playing off the old-fashioned quip: Never ask a man his salary, a woman her age, or a dictator why he needs help from Iran and North Korea to invade his much smaller neighbour.

The awkward answer, of course, is that Putin’s invasion is not going well. Over the last year, he’s only managed to seize another 0.1% net of Ukraine’s territory, while his casualties push past a half million (ten times what the Soviets faced during a decade in Afghanistan), and interest rates hit 19% in an escalating attempt to rein in inflation.

So while a few thousand North Korean troops won’t make much of a difference, Putin will hope they signal otherwise, particularly ahead of elections in the US (his intended audience).

Also worth noting: 

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has told journalists that Russia’s cooperation with North Korea is “not directed against third countries”. We can confirm that Ukraine is indeed a third country.