2024-10-27 07:20:00
North Korean soldiers arriving in <a href="http://www.time.news/mega-storm-hits-southern-russia-and-ukraine/" title="“Mega storm” hits southern <a href="http://www.time.news/mega-storm-hits-southern-russia-and-ukraine/" title="“Mega storm” hits southern Russia and Ukraine“>Russia and Ukraine“>Russia are first asked the size of their helmet, clothing and military boots. Then they form a line and go receiving the uniforms of the Russian army one by one. This can be seen in a video and a questionnaire published by the Strategic Communication Center of the Ukrainian government. They are the first evidence of North Korea sending military personnel to Russia to aid in the war effort to invade Ukraine. The video is located in the training center in the Russian city of Sergievsky, about 700 kilometers from the Ukrainian Donbass.
What the Ukrainian government had felt privately for weeks has become a public and well-known fact in recent days. The first to raise the alarm was the Ukrainian president himself, Volodymyr Zelenskyj, on 17 October. “We know approximately 10,000 North Korean soldiers “They are preparing to fight against us,” he said after meeting the leaders of the 27 European Union countries in Brussels. This Thursday, the admiral and US defense spokesman, John Kirbyprovided more details: “We believe that from the beginning of this month of October until the middle of this month, North Korea has already sent at least 3,000 troops into eastern Russia. They traveled by ship from the North Korean region of Wonsan A Vladivostok in Russia. Then they were distributed to various training centers across the country,” Kirby told reporters. This same Thursday the Russian president Vladimir Putinindirectly confirmed the movement. “Images are a serious thing. If there are photographs, then they reflect something,” he replied to an NBC journalist after the BRICS summit in Moscow. He was referring to images like the one in the video above and others circulating on social networks in which North Korean soldiers are seen in several Russian cities.
“This is assumed first They will be sent to the Kursk region [zona rusa invadida por Ucrania] and that they will be used not in the first wave of attacks, but at a secondary level,” a senior official from the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine assures the newspaper. “Before entering combat they will be trained Russian military instructors familiarize yourself with modern technologies such as drones. North Korean soldiers will wear Russian uniforms and be equipped with light weapons. They will be integrated into Russian military units of similar appearancemade up of Russian ethnic minorities, such as the Buryats [el grupo étnico mongol más numeroso en Siberia]”. This source estimates between 10,000 and 12,000 North Korean soldiers supporting Russian troops and does not rule out subsequent shipments.
Alliance between Russia and North Korea
In June, Vladimir Putin visited Kim Jong Un in North Korea. The Russian president’s first visit to North Korean territory after 24 years. Two days of official travel in which the two autocrats showed harmony. A smiling Kim was seen as co-pilot while Putin drove a North Korean-made luxury car.
They signed a military cooperation agreement. “In the event that either party enters a state of war for a armed invasion of one or more statesthe other side will provide military aid and other assistance without delay with all its available capacity,” the text reads.
And so it was. It was launched immediately. Russia was invaded by Ukraine last summer. Ukrainian soldiers entered in the Kursk region of Russia and they still control part of that territory. Not that such a formal justification was necessary: Russia has already used infantrymen of other nationalities, especially Syrians, in these three years of war.
But what is happening now is on another level, on another scale. The entry of thousands of foreign soldiers into the Ukrainian war brings the conflict into a new geopolitical dimension, although there are differences when it comes to analyzing what this movement means in the military field.
“There are three theories about the use that will be made of these soldiers,” he explains to this newspaper. Ivan Gomzafrom the Kyiv School of Economics. “The first is that it is cannon fodderlow-quality soldiers who know nothing of modern warfare, such as those recruited from Russian prisons.” Many of these men are sent in waves to the front, among other things to reveal Ukrainian artillery or trench positions. For Washington this is proof of the desperation of the Kremlin, which has to pay more and more to recruit soldiers. It cannot be ruled out that among the North Koreans sent to Russia there may also be specialists in the mining or artillery sectors. Some recent information suggests that a North Korean special operations unit, with snipers, will also be sent.
The other option, the professor points out, is that it is not the combat troops themselves that are massively integrated into the Russian army, but basically a corps of engineers. “They could help lift and maintain occupied areas fortifications similar to those of the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea,” he underlines. The famous 38th Parallel.
In 1953, a ceasefire was signed between the two Koreas, ending a three-year war between the two Koreas and the Soviet Union and China, which supported the North, and the United States and 21 United Nations countries with the South. That border was then established and the conflict was frozen. But technically, both countries are still at war. For many, a future very similar to what awaits Ukraine. Russia controls Donbass, Crimea and perhaps some other territory, is strongly entrenched and never signs a real peace with Ukraine.
Undercover until caught
Which of these scenarios is correct will be seen in the coming weeks or months. If they are the first and they are fighting soldiers, it is natural that sooner or later some of them will be captured by the Ukrainians and questioned. South Korea has already offered to send translators to Ukraine if necessary.
It will also be possible to indirectly verify whether there are obvious improvements on the battle front, for example in the use of artillery. North Korea has sent at least three million artillery shells. Many of them were defective, causing cannon explosions and Russian casualties, according to the Ukrainian press. Pyongyang also sent ballistic missiles, used in the daily martyrdom of the country of sunflowers.
What is much clearer is the political impact of the movement. “The policy of Washington or Berlin is not to escalate the conflict. But what we have just witnessed is that Putin, clearly, is trying to extend it to other countries and build new alliances,” concludes Gomza. “Politically, it is a clear sign that the containment policy has failed once again.”
This step towards internationalization has put South Korea and JapanCountries that always live under the threat of belligerent attacks by Kim Jong Un and his missiles.
And what do the North Koreans gain from all this? For starters, they break their isolation situation. Russia can provide them with fuel and food. At the same time, They stop depending almost exclusively on China. Putin finds an ally. Will it be the last?
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