Vladimir Putin’s request for military aid to Kim Jong-un in September 2023 was interpreted as a sign of Russian weakness. A year and a half after the invasion of Ukraine, the leader of Russia met with the North Korean dictator at a cosmodrome in the Russian Far East to exchange favors. What seemed like a desperate measure, resorting to one of the poorest and most isolated countries on the planet, also had its logic: the enormous North Korean arsenals from Soviet times could feed the Russian military machine. A year has passed since the first shipment of North Korean ammunition reported by Western intelligence services and the Pyongyang regime is already essential for the Kremlin’s war. In addition, both sides have sealed an alliance that would involve Russian aid to its North Korean friends if they felt threatened.
Kim’s contribution to the “sacred war against the West”, as the North Korean leader defined the invasion of Ukraine, is decisive above all due to the 122 millimeter ammunition that he has supplied for the Russian howitzers. The Times reported on October 4, based on intelligence sources from NATO members, that half of the projectiles fired by Russian cannons are of North Korean origin. The British newspaper stated that Pyongyang had supplied three million projectiles, below the five million that South Korea had estimated that its northern enemy had transferred to Moscow.
The Ukrainian Government points out that the quality of this ammunition, stored for decades, is poor and fails in many cases. Multiple Ukrainian drone attacks between September and October against Russian weapons depots have also decimated the invader’s artillery strength. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ivan Havriliuk stated on October 1 that if at the beginning of the year the superiority of Russian artillery was eight to one, today it would only be three to one. The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denis Shmihal, assured that same day that Ukrainian production of ammunition had tripled and now represented half of that used by the Armed Forces.
But the constant Russian advance in the Donetsk province since last spring bears the North Korean stamp, as both the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and brigade commanders on the front have stressed: without Pyongyang’s projectiles, the Russian offensive would be less intense.
North Korean soldiers on the front?
North Korean collaboration with Russia has now entered a new phase, according to kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Sunday that Kim is no longer only sending weapons to Moscow, but is also sending troops. “We have seen a growing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea. It is not just weapons, now it transfers personnel to the occupation forces,” said the Ukrainian president. “It is obvious that in these conditions the relationship with our partners needs a leap forward,” he added. Zelensky referred, without specifying, to going beyond the supply of long-range missiles and other weapons that he insistently demands.
The Ukrainian president insisted Monday that his army’s General Staff had provided him with reports on Moscow’s willingness to further involve Pyongyang in its military operations in Ukraine during the fall and winter.
Several thousand North Korean soldiers, Ukrainian military sources revealed on October 11 to Washington Postcould already be training in Russia for combat operations. The objective, kyiv believes, is for these reinforcements to be incorporated into the Russian army by the end of the year. Militarnyia Ukrainian media specialized in military analysis, believes that Pyongyang’s soldiers would assume border control functions to free up Russian troops who can serve on the war front.
kyiv believes that North Koreans have already died in the war. The Ukrainian media took as certain information from its intelligence services about a bombing on October 3 of a military base in the city of Donetsk, illegally annexed by Russia, which, according to that version, also killed six North Korean officers. Andrii Kovalenko, a member of the National Security Council, has insisted that North Korean engineers are in occupied territory checking the status of ammunition and the use of their Hwasong-11 tactical ballistic missiles.
The Ukrainian partisan group SROK, which operates in the regions under Russian control, stated on October 14 that they have detected three artillery training camps with the presence of Korean officers in the vicinity of Mariupol. The Ukrainian media specialized in military information Defense Express He assured on October 9 that he had detected the invader’s use of D-74 howitzers, a Soviet cannon from the 1950s that was no longer operational in Russia and could only have come from North Korean arsenals.
The Kremlin and Pyongyang have denied all this information, but the truth is that remains of the Hwasong-11 were identified in an attack against kyiv last August.
An alliance for war in Europe and Asia
Military collaboration between both regimes has reached a new dimension with the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty that Putin and Kim agreed upon during their meeting in Pyongyang on June 19. The Russian president presented this Monday a bill in the lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, to ratify an alliance that, on paper, is only defensive in nature, but that will facilitate the North Korean nuclear race.
“If one of the parties is the subject of an armed attack by one or more States and is therefore in a state of war, the other party shall immediately provide military and other assistance with all the means at its disposal. and in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter – the inherent right of self-defense –”, includes the text of the agreement presented on the Kremlin website.
The content of this provision of the pact – which copies letter by letter the articles of the treaty between the USSR and North Korea of 1961, according to the South Korean Yonhap agency – is not clear. The well-known Russian pro-war correspondent Alexander Sladkov wondered on his Telegram channel, which has almost a million followers, whether the arrival of Ukrainian troops in the Russian region of Kursk in August can be considered a precedent to invoke the activation of that article and , therefore, North Korea’s participation in the war in defense of its ally.
In addition, the agreement includes the occupied territories as provinces that are already part of Russia and that, therefore, must also be defended by the North Korean ally. However, although the annexation of these regions has been recognized by Pyongyang, this has not been the case for its great protector, China, which has never legitimized any Russian conquest, including that of Crimea in 2014.
In 2023, Putin forged with Chinese President Xi Jinping a plan “for a new era.” The alliance between Kremlin and Pyongyang reinforces their bloc compared to the one formed in Asia by the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, the Aukus military platform, and its partners Japan and South Korea.
The Kremlin came to the defense of its new ally this Tuesday. After Pyongyang blew up roads connecting its country to the south of the peninsula, Moscow has warned Seoul that its new treaty could involve Russia in a hypothetical conflict if it takes action.
“The South Korean authorities should take Pyongyang’s warnings very seriously and stop aggravating the situation on the peninsula with their reckless provocation campaign, which is fueling a new escalation of tensions with armed incidents,” the Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned. Russian, María Zajárova, through her Telegram channel.
According to Pyongyang, South Korea dropped propaganda leaflets on its territory using drones. Moscow has classified this alleged action as interference in North Korean internal affairs. “Seoul must understand that promoting the seizure of power by imposing pseudoliberal values and the expansion of certain freedoms creates security threats, especially for its own citizens,” Zajárova said on her Telegram channel.