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Intelligence officials have claimed that North Korea is planning to deploy troops inside Ukraine, marking a significant escalation in its involvement in the war.
The claim emerged as a new report revealed that at least half of all the munitions used by the Russian army in Ukraine were supplied by North Korea, highlighting the Kremlin’s increasing reliance on Kim Jong-un.
Although Kim’s regime has sent around 14,000 troops to help the Russian army drive Kyiv’s forces out of Russia’s western Kursk region, North Korean troops have yet to enter Ukraine.
But, Andrii Kovalenko, a senior member of Ukraine’s National Defence and Security Council, has claimed that Russia is planning to deploy North Korean forces to eastern and southern areas of Ukraine that the Kremlin claims as its own territory.
He said: “The North Korean soldiers will wear Russian military uniforms, just like in [the] Kursk [region].”
If the deployment goes ahead, it would mark the first time that North Korean forces have directly participated in the invasion of a sovereign European country.
British intelligence officials now believe that Kim’s ultimate aim is to secure Russian assistance for his nuclear programme.
Edward Howell, an expert on North Korea at the University of Oxford, said: “I’m not surprised in the slightest by revelations about the deployment of North Korean troops to Ukraine. North Korea is willing to risk the further deployment of its troops beyond the Kursk region because Kim Jong-un hopes that, in return for this utmost form of manpower commitment, he can get what he wants most: advanced missile and military technology.”
The alliance between Putin and Kim has provided Moscow with a vital edge on the battlefield, at a time when the future of Washington’s military assistance for Ukraine remains uncertain.
Ukrainian military intelligence has stated that approximately one in every two artillery shells fired by Russia now originates from North Korea.
Hugh Griffiths, a former United Nations expert on monitoring sanctions against North Korea, said: “Without Chairman Kim Jong-un’s support, President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t really be able to prosecute his war in Ukraine.”
Although the Kremlin supported United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang until only eight years ago, relations between the two countries have grown steadily warmer since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence pact last year during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang, where he was met by cheering crowds and streets lined with his portrait. But co-operation between the two nations goes beyond the battlefield.
Even before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia made use of North Korean labourers on building sites, farms, and in logging camps, despite UN sanctions prohibiting Pyongyang from exporting workers.
