In September 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his North Korean “arsenals of evil” cohort Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok, Russia. The two dictators finalized plans for North Korea to supply desperately needed artillery ammunition to Russia’s faltering army in Ukraine.
In return, Pyongyang received military technologies to advance North Korea’s military satellite and nuclear-powered submarine capabilities and its nuclear and missile programs. The meeting was intended as nuclear messaging to the Biden administration, and as a veiled threat to U.S. space satellites as it occurred at Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome – a spaceport – in Russia’s Amur region.
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Last June, the partnership deepened. Russia and North Korea signed a strategic partnership treaty, which provides mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the participants. Now, ominously, that mutual assistance has grown from ballistic missiles and artillery rounds to ”boots on the ground” in eastern Europe.
Equally troubling, there are hints that Putin is seeking a new October 7-like distraction on the Korean Peninsula. In recent days, Kim has increased his pugilistic rhetoric against Seoul calling South Korea a foreign, hostile country.
One week earlier, Kim destroyed the inter-Korean road and railway lines near its border with South Korea. Then on Friday, Pyongyang claimed it had found the remains of a South Korean drone during a search [of] its capital.
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Putin and Iran have already tied down a significant coalition force led by the U.S. in the Middle East and Red Sea. Now, the Kremlin might be seeking to do the same in the Korean Peninsula to further stretch U.S. military assets and munitions.
This is how World Wars begin.
Former Warsaw Pact countries – along with the Baltic States – once subjugated to Russian authority, are not likely to sit idle and watch North Korean troops support Russia’s destruction of Ukraine. Especially if the U.S. becomes tied down defending South Korea.
That point was not lost on Michael R. Turner (R-OH), Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who sent a to President Biden on Oct. 18 that stated, “The administration has not briefed the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence or the House Armed Services Committee of any assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies or the Department of Defense regarding these [North Korean] troop movements.”
He describes the situation as an “extreme escalation of the conflict in Ukraine” that requires an “immediate response from the U.S. and our NATO allies to avoid a widening conflict. North Korean troops, either attacking Ukraine from Russian territory or entering into Ukrainian territory, must be a red line for the U.S. and NATO.”
The Institute for the Study of War stated in its June 26 update that there was no reporting to suggest that North Korean military personnel intend to participate in combat operations in Ukraine. A lot has changed since that update.
The Sergievsky Training Ground in the far East of Russia is getting a lot of attention now. According to recent reports, between 11 thousand and 12 thousand North Korean soldiers are receiving training at the base before their onward movement to Russia’s Kursk Oblast or Ukraine’s Donbas region.
It is not a leap of faith to acknowledge the possibility North Korean troops have been sent to support Russia’s ˜special military operation. Afterall, six North Korean officers were reported killed, and three service members wounded in a Ukrainian missile strike near Donetsk on Oct. 3. According to Russian social media posts, Kremlin forces were demonstrating infantry assault and defense training to their North Koreans counterparts before the missile strike.
Putin has already amassed 675,800 casualties. To sustain a loss rate of over 1,000 soldiers a day, he has repositioned forces from Kaliningrad and other bases along the NATO border, resorted to the mobilization of reserve forces, conscription, hired mercenaries, recruited prisoners from penal colonies, and foreign fighters.
Moscow has mustered as many as 15,000 foreign fighters from Nepal, 26,000 from Chechnya, and several thousand from Africa – chiefly from central African countries, the Sahel and east Africa. Russia is reportedly offering a sign-up bonus of $2,000, monthly pay of $2,200 and the promise of a Russian passport.
Nonetheless, the hits keep coming for the Kremlin. On October 17, Russia suffered its second deadliest day since the start of invasion, amassing1,530 Russian casualties.
Enter North Korea. But Kim Jong Un’s army is different. These are trained soldiers, not simply warm bodies taking up space in Russian uniforms to be thrown into the “meat grinder.”
They have been described as infantry, Special Forces, military police, and engineering units. Units that execute missions “ not necessarily used as “cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine as flippantly described by Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder. Granted, Kim has about as much compassion for his soldiers as Putin – they are simply tools, and expendable – except they have tangible skill sets required by Russian ground forces.
Their presence in the Russian Kursk Oblast and Ukraine’s Donbas region should be considered as a significant red flag. North Korea continues to provide Russia with offensive capabilities – in munitions, weapons and now soldiers. For whatever reason, the Biden administration seems to discount the threat.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters on Monday that he had “seen reports” of North Korean troops being deployed on the side of Russia. “If this is true, then to me, it looks more like an act of desperation than anything else.”
It is not desperation. It is an alliance to defeat Ukraine and must be treated that way, not discounted. This only gets worse the longer it is ignored.
Putin and his Axis of Evil allies are kinetically jabbing at Washington and Brussels left and right – and soon, potentially on the Korean peninsula. The Biden administration must stop handcuffing our allies. It is only emboldening Putin to escalate his war against Ukraine – and notably his ideological war against the West.
The U.S. and NATO must respond by enabling Ukraine to strike targets deep within the Russian interior with precision deep strike capabilities“ to interdict the movement of these North Korean soldiers from the training bases to the front lines, and to destroy their ballistic missiles and artillery rounds in Russian storage depots before they can be used against civilian targets.
Russia cannot be an off-limits sanctuary for Russian or North Korean soldiers. Ukraine must be empowered to take the fight to Putin’s forces wherever they are and regardless of which side of the border that they are assembling.
Geopolitically, President Joe Biden must now also recognize it is time for Ukraine to become a full-fledged member of NATO. It is increasingly evident that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals are fighting two nuclear powers – Russia and North Korea – and being aided and abetted by a third: China.
We argued last February at The Hill in Washington that the Biden administration was late to World War III. North Korea, it appears, is showing up early – and Pyongyang’s own war against the West –and now Ukraine – must no longer be ignored.
Copyright 2024. Jonathan E. Sweet and Mark C. Toth. All rights reserved.
Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the authors’ and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
