North Korea emerges as key ally of Moscow in Ukraine war

Vladimir Putin’s request for military assistance from 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 Russian leader was meeting the North Korean dictator at a cosmodrome in the Russian Far East to exchange favors. What seemed like a desperate measure — turning to one of the poorest and most isolated countries on the planet — was also logical: Pyongyang’s huge Soviet-era arsenals could feed the Russian military machine. A year has passed since the first North Korean ammunition shipment reported by Western intelligence services and Kim’s regime is now essential to the Kremlin’s war. In addition, Moscow and Pyongyang have sealed an alliance that includes a pact on mutual defense “in case of aggression.”

Kim’s contribution to the “holy war against the West,” as the North Korean leader called the invasion of Ukraine, is crucial above all because of the 122-millimeter ammunition he has supplied for Russian howitzers. The Times reported on October 4, citing intelligence sources within NATO member states, that half of the shells fired by Russian artillery are of North Korean origin. The British newspaper specified that Pyongyang had supplied three million shells, fewer than the five million South Korea had estimated its northern enemy had transferred to Moscow.

The Ukrainian government says the quality of this ammunition, which has been in storage for decades, is poor and often fails. 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 Havryliuk said on October 1 that if at the beginning of the year the superiority of Russian artillery was eight to one, today it would be only three to one. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that same day that Ukrainian ammunition production had tripled and now accounted for half of that used by the Armed Forces.

But the steady Russian advance in Donetsk since last spring bears the North Korean stamp, as both the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and brigade commanders on the front have stressed: without Pyongyang’s missiles, the Russian offensive would be less intense.

North Korean soldiers on the front?

North Korea’s cooperation with Russia has now entered a new phase, Kyiv has warned. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Kim is no longer just sending arms to Moscow, but also troops. “We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea. It is no longer just about transferring weapons. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces,” said the Ukrainian leader. “Obviously, in such circumstances, our relations with our partners need to be developed. The frontline needs more support,” he added. Zelenskiy was referring, without specifying it, to going beyond the supply of long-range missiles and other weapons that Kyiv insistently asks for.

Ukraine's president insisted Monday that his army's general staff had provided him with reports that Moscow was willing to involve Pyongyang more in its military operations in Ukraine during the fall and winter.

Several thousand North Korean soldiers may already be training in Russia for combat operations, Ukrainian military sources told The Washington Post on October 11. The goal, Kyiv believes, is for these reinforcements to join the Russian army by the end of the year. Militarnyi, a Ukrainian media outlet specializing in military analysis, believes that Pyongyang’s soldiers would take on border control duties to free up Russian troops to serve on the front lines.

Kyiv believes that North Koreans have already died in the war. Ukrainian media have confirmed information from its intelligence services that the bombing of a military base on October 3 in Donetsk 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 state of ammunition and the use of its Hwasong-11 tactical ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian partisan group SROK, which operates in Russian-controlled regions, said on October 14 that it had detected three artillery training camps with North Korean officers in the vicinity of Mariupol. The Ukrainian military news outlet Defense Express said on October 9 that it had detected the use by the invader of D-74 howitzers, a Soviet cannon from the 1950s that is no longer in use in Russia and can only have come from North Korean arsenals.

The Kremlin and Pyongyang have denied all these reports, but it is certain that remnants of a Hwasong-11 were identified in an attack on Kyiv last August.

An alliance for war in Europe and Asia

Military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang 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 a bill on Monday in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, to ratify an alliance that, on paper, is only defensive in nature, but which will facilitate North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

“If one of the parties is subjected to 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 means at its disposal and in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter — the inherent right of self-defence,” reads the text of the agreement posted on the Kremlin website.

The content of this provision of the pact — which copies word for word the articles of the 1961 treaty between the USSR and North Korea, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap — 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 incursion of Ukrainian troops into the Russian region of Kursk in August could be considered a precedent for invoking the activation of this article and, therefore, the participation of North Korea in the war in defense of its ally.

Moreover, the agreement includes the occupied territories as provinces that are already part of Russia and which must therefore also be defended by the Kremlin’s ally. However, although the annexation of these regions has been recognized by Pyongyang, this has not been the case by its great protector, China, which has never legitimized any Russian conquest, including that of Crimea in 2014.

In 2023, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping forged a plan “for a new era.” The alliance between the Kremlin and Pyongyang strengthens their bloc against 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 defence of its new ally on Tuesday. After Pyongyang blew up roads connecting the country to the south of the peninsula, Moscow warned Seoul that its new treaty could involve Russia in a hypothetical conflict if it takes action.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition