Carol R. Saivetz
In early October 2024, Ukrainian intelligence announced that several thousand North Korean soldiers had begun training in Russia. The South Korean government and the United States corroborated the report. Then, on November 5, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov stated that Ukrainian forces had had their first encounter with the North Koreans. By the second week in November, speculation mounted that the Russians were preparing a counter-offensive against Ukrainian troops in Kursk that would include the same North Korean forces.
On the one hand, the deployment of the North Korean troops seems a logical follow-up to the mutual defense treaty signed by Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang in June. On the other hand, it raises a series of important questions.
What will be the impact of the deployment on Russia’s war effort? What does it say about the North Korean-Russian relationship? What are the implications for the Korean peninsula and Russo-Chinese relationship?
The treaty signed in June states that North Korea and Russia “shall provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession without delay” if one party “is put in a state of war by an armed invasion from an individual state or several states.”
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