Thousands of North Korean troops are being trained to provide combat power in Ukraine to help Russia make up for mounting losses, according to reports. The move is part of a growing alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang that benefits both parties in several ways.
“The North Koreans will form part of the ‘Special Buryat Battalion,’ organized within the 11th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces,” the Ukrainian Liga media outlet reported on Tuesday. “The battalion is expected to include up to 3,000 North Korean troops and is currently being supplied with small arms and ammunition.”
Liga suggested that the battalion could be deployed near the Ukrainian-occupied town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region, but the exact location or arrival time remains unknown. The Ukrainian Suspline news outlet suggested that there are already a number of North Korean troops there. Meanwhile, North Koreans could also find themselves fighting on Ukrainian soil, Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram.
Thousands of North Korean infantry soldiers are undergoing training in Russia and could be deployed to the front line in Ukraine by the end of this year, The Washington Post wrote last week, citing a Ukrainian military intelligence official.
“The official said North Korean officers are already on the ground in Russia-occupied Ukraine to observe Russian forces and study the battlefield, but Kyiv hasn’t seen any North Korean units fighting yet,” the Post reported. As we previously noted, dozens of North Koreans are behind Russian lines in Ukraine. They are operating “in teams that support launcher systems for KN-23 [short-range ballistic] missiles,” a source in Ukraine told The Guardian last week. North Korea began supplying Russia with those missiles, also known as Hwasong-11s, but about half were defective, according to an analysis from Ukrainian state prosecutors.
One report claims that 10,000 North Korean troops have been dispatched to assist Russia.
North Korean troops, as we previously noted, have already been killed in Ukraine.
While Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday dismissed claims of Pyongyang sending military personnel to fight in Ukraine as a “hoax,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted that it is happening.
“We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea,” Zelensky said during his evening address on Sunday. “This is no longer just about transferring weapons. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces. Obviously, in such circumstances, our relations with partners need to develop further.”
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted a draft law to the Russian State Duma seeking ratification of a strategic partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang, hammered in June. It calls for each side to provide military assistance to each other in the event of war.
“In the event that one of the Parties is subjected to an armed attack by a State or several States and thus finds it in a state of war, the other Party will immediately provide military and other assistance with all available means at its disposal, in accordance with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance with the legislation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation,” the agreement stated.
All this comes in the wake of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s visit to Russia last year for a summit with Putin where the two men bolstered their deepening ties with a shadowy arms deal. It was reported that, among other things, it called for Pyongyang to send construction and engineering forces to Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine for rebuilding work. There was no indication of how many personnel would be involved or the exact nature of their work. It is unclear whether that actually occurred.
There are several reasons why a mutual aid pact could be highly attractive to both parties.
It benefits North Korea in several ways. The cash-starved nation can receive economic and military assistance from Russia by providing its biggest available resource – personnel – in return. It could also gain real-world combat experience on a relatively modern battlefield, something its troops have not had in decades. Pyongyang has already been sanctioned by the U.S. for sending forced labor to distant counties as a way of raising money for the regime.
North Korean troops fighting Ukraine help Russia make up for what the Pentagon said is the loss of some 600,000 troops killed and wounded since the beginning of the all-out invasion. It also assists Putin in avoiding an unpopular larger conscription, according to the Kyiv Post, citing sources in the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR).
“Putin is doing everything possible to delay and avoid the decision to conduct a new full-fledged wave of mobilization on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the publication reported.
Last month, GUR commander Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said Russia was facing a troop shortfall.
“In this period (in the summer of 2025), they will face a dilemma – either to announce mobilization or in some way it is necessary to reduce the intensity of hostilities a little, which may, in the end, be critical for them,” he said, according to the Interfax news outlet.
How well North Korean troops will perform is an open question.
About 18 have already fled their positions in Kursk and Bryansk, according to the Ukrainian Suspine news outlet.
Another huge issue is language, said Kovalenko.
“Less than 1% of the personnel officers of the army of the DPRK speak Russian,” he noted. “This is important to understand in order to analyze the possibilities of involving these military personnel in the actions of the Russian army in the future.”
North Korea is no stranger to foreign deployments. It sent a fighter squadron to back up its communist ally North Vietnam during that conflict, noted Samual Ramani, DPhil/PhD Intl Relations @UniofOxford Associate Fellow @RUSI_org and author “Russia in Africa” and “Putin’s War on Ukraine.” It dispatched pilots to fly on Egyptian jets during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and military trainers to back up Iran’s forces during the Iran-Iraq War.
“North Korea simultaneously was carrying out an even higher intensity military campaign in Angola,” Ramani said on Twitter. “About 3,000 North Korean troops and 1,000 advisors backed the Angolan MPLA alongside Cuba and against apartheid South Africa’s forces.”
Pyongyang provided military assistance to other African nations as well, including Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
“Post-Cold War, North Korea’s interventions dried up but training (including allegedly of Hezbollah on tunnel building) persisted Syria was a theatre where the Chalma brigades fought on Bashar al-Assad’s behalf,” Ramani wrote.
While relatively small numbers of troops from other nations help both sides in this conflict, there has been no large-scale mobilization of foreign forces for either party. North Korea sending thousands of soldiers to help Russia would be a major change in that status quo, although just how much effect they could have remains unclear.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com