1 November 2024
About 8,000 North Korean soldiers are stationed in Russia on the border with Ukraine, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on 31 October, warning that Moscow is preparing to deploy those troops into combat “in the coming days”. Blinken was speaking during a press conference after meeting South Korea’s foreign and defence ministers in Washington.
The US believe that North Korea has sent 10,000 troops to Russia in total, deploying them first to training bases in the far east before sending the vast majority to the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine. Kyiv's military captured parts of Kursk in August during an operation that represented the first military offensive into Russia since World War II.
The deployment could expand the war into a multi-region conflict, tying in the rising tensions in the Korean peninsula between North and South Korea.
Blinken’s comments came hours after North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, highlighting a potential advancement in its missile technology and concerns over a potential agreement between President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un for North Korea’s support in the war against Ukraine in exchange for Russian military or space technology.
Following a briefing to the North Atlantic Council (NAC, the principal political decision-making body within NATO) by South Korean security and defence officials on 28 October, the NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, had confirmed the North Korean deployment to Russia after weeks of intelligence reports indicating the move. Rutte said the deployment represented a "significant escalation" and a "dangerous expansion" of Russia's war in Ukraine. He added that North Korea had already sent ballistic missiles and millions of rounds of ammunition to Moscow for use in Ukraine. In return, President Putin has agreed to send military technology and other support to help North Korea evade international sanctions, Rutte said. The partnership, he added, was "undermining global peace and security". NATO’s other Indo-Pacific partners—Australia, Japan and New Zealand—also attended the ambassador-level NAC briefing.
Casualties continue to rise
Moscow's full-scale invasion has now raged for more than two-and-a-half years, with Rutte claiming that more than 600,000 Russian troops have now been killed or wounded in the war. He said the Kremlin was "unable to sustain his assault on Ukraine without foreign support".
Separately, President Zelensky said on 28 October that about 650,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded. "They [Russians] are not collecting the bodies... their people are rotting on the ground," he said in an interview with The Times of India.
Official casualty updates from either side are rare. But according to an analysis by BBC Russian in September 2024, more than 70,000 Russian troops have been confirmed killed in combat. In February, Zelensky said about 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Russia's full-scale invasion. Estimates by several Western media outlets suggest that number is much higher.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a disaggregated data collection, analysis and crisis mapping project, there were a total of 124,172 conflict-related fatalities (i.e. both military & civilian) in Ukraine between 24 February 2022 and 1 November 2024: 84,149 in battles; 38,542 in explosions/remote violence; 1,465 in violence against civilians; and 16 in protests/strategic developments. In the same period on Russian territory, ACLED has recorded 3,794 conflict-related fatalities: 2,105 in battles; 1,322 in explosions/remote violence; 263 in violence against civilians; and 104 in strategic developments and riots. Separately, the UN estimates that more than 12,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, while the number of Ukrainian refugees has now reached 6.7 million and, since Russia’s invasion in 2014, Ukraine’s population has declined by over 10 million.
The response from Moscow
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed to a security and defence treaty signed by Moscow and Pyongyang in June. “We have said many times that the treaty is not secret, it is public, the entire text has been published, and it in no way violates any provisions of international law, because it involves, among other things, the providing of assistance in case one of the countries that is a party to the treaty is militarily attacked,” he told a press conference in Moscow on 28 October, in comments reported by the Interfax news agency. “So our position here is absolutely honest and open,” he added.
President Putin said in an interview on 25 October on state television that it was up to Moscow how it uses the new defence treaty's clause on mutual military assistance. "It's our sovereign decision, whether we use something or not," Putin said. "Where, how, whether we need this, or (if) we, for example, only carry out some exercises, training, passing on some experience — that's our business".
South Korea to deepen support for Ukraine?
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has called North Korea’s deployment a "provocation that threatens global security beyond the Korean Peninsula and Europe". Yoon also said South Korea will review its stance on providing weapons to Ukraine. So far, Seoul has limited its assistance to humanitarian aid. However, Seoul has already sold major weapon systems to Poland, a key ally of Kyiv, including tanks, howitzers, attack aircraft and rocket launchers to. South Korea's Hanwha Aerospace, for example, has signed a $1.64 billion deal with Poland to supply rocket artillery units. And in June, South Korea agreed to its K2 tanks being partially produced in Poland. South Korea may therefore either look to transfer weapons directly to Ukraine or through Poland or even arrange future co-production inside Ukraine.