Ukraine Prepares To Fight North Korean Troops

Ukraine prepares to fight North Korean troops in the Russian region of Kursk on Wednesday, as the entry of a second nuclear power in Russia’s war against Ukraine threatened to escalate and broaden the conflict.

The United States Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that North Korean troops were in Kursk, where Ukraine launched a counter-invasion almost three months ago.

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said there was “a small number of North Korean troops in the Kursk oblast, with a couple of thousand more that are almost there or due to arrive imminently”.

A senior South Korean official told reporters on Wednesday that about 3,000 North Korean troops were being moved close to the front lines.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte confirmed the deployment on Monday. “Today I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and that North Korean army units are deployed to the Kursk region,” he told reporters.

He called it “a significant escalation in the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] ongoing involvement in Russia’s illegal war”, and “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war”.

Ryder confirmed that North Korea had sent a total of 10,000 troops for training in eastern Russia. South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence last week suggested the number could be as high as 12,000.

North Korea could not make an appreciable difference, said researcher Olena Guseinova in a new study for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation last week.

“The regime, in perspective, could potentially provide Russia with an additional 3 to 4 units, comprising 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers of various skills,” she concluded. “Even in such a case, however, North Korean assistance is unlikely to change the overall course of the war.”

Caution On Both Allies

US messaging on the terms of Ukrainian engagement with North Korean forces was fuzzy, as officials appeared to come to grips with the implications of Washington openly encouraging engagement of a nuclear adversary through proxies.

Asked on Tuesday if he supported Ukraine attacking the North Koreans, US President Joe Biden said: “If they cross into Ukraine, yes.”

Asked if Ukraine was at liberty to use US weapons against North Korean troops, Ryder said: “We’ve been very clear that Ukraine is able to employ those capabilities to defend their sovereign territory from threats that are either emanating from across the border or from inside Ukrainian territory.”

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said Seoul would not send 155mm shells to Ukraine, citing sources in the office of President Yoon Suk-yeol.

South Korea will send an intelligence delegation to monitor the military effectiveness of North Korean troops.

Russia’s Incremental Gains

Russia continued to make small territorial gains within Ukraine itself during the past week, as it has throughout this year.

On Sunday, Russian troops captured the settlement of Selidovo in the eastern Donetsk region, by advancing from several directions at once.

In an apparent tactical innovation, Russian forces also mounted light, first-person view (FPV) drones with ammunition onto heavy reconnaissance drones, enabling them to travel deeper behind Ukrainian lines.

“The zone of its damage was expanded due to the depth of penetration of the main reconnaissance UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], which… dropped the FPV drone directly in the area of ​​impact with the targets,” National Guard spokesman Vitaly Mylovydov told a telethon.

Ukraine Defence Development

Attending the fourth Ukraine-Nordic countries summit on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy encouraged more investment in Ukraine’s and Europe’s defence industrial base.

“Please continue to develop your own industries, producing everything needed for defence, including sensitive items like microchips. Europe needs industrial strength and independence from other parts of the world,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s industrial policy has yielded impressive results. Its Ministry of Defence revealed on Tuesday that in the first 10 months of the year, it had issued contracts for the supply of 1.6 million drones of various types, nearly 1.3 million of which had been delivered.

Ukraine has substituted drones for 155mm shells, where Russia has a roughly 2:1 advantage, and used them with devastating precision against Russian drones, dugouts and armour.

Ukraine’s armed forces said drone pilots were practising destroying Russian-made Gerbera drones as training to take out Iranian-designed Shahed drones.

On Friday, Zelenskyy told his national security council, “The biggest priority is drones, of course; including drones that can shoot down Shaheds and other attack drones.”

 

 

 

 

Al Jazeera/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma