Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a speech to parliament on Wednesday that North Korea was a de facto participant in the war in Ukraine, siding with Russia. He said Ukrainian intelligence had discovered that Pyongyang was transferring not only weapons but also soldiers to Moscow.
Deepening military ties between Russia and North Korea have drawn condemnation from the United States, South Korea and Japan. The three countries on Wednesday announced a new team to monitor weapons sanctions on North Korea.
So to what extent is North Korea helping Russia, what is the depth of their military cooperation, and to what extent does Moscow need Pyongyang's help?
Is North Korea sending soldiers to Russia?
According to Ukraine and South Korea, yes.
On October 8, Seoul Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun told South Korean politicians that it was “very likely” that North Korean officers were killed in a Ukrainian attack near Donetsk on October 3.
And on Friday, October 18, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said Russian naval ships had transferred 1,500 North Korean troops to the Russian Pacific port city of Vladivostok between October 8 and 13.
However, Russia has rejected the accusation that North Korean personnel are in Russia.
“This looks like yet another fake news,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier this month.
While Ukraine and South Korea have not released any evidence to support their claims, experts say North Korea's military presence in Ukraine is believable.
“We cannot rule out the possibility,” Edward Howell, a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera. “We know that Russia needs manpower.”
Howell added that even if North Korea does not send infantrymen, “we cannot rule out that North Korea will send military engineers as well as personnel to help monitor and supervise the use of North Korean weapons, which may be numerous in quantity, but of variable”. quality – in Ukraine.”
Howell's research focuses on the politics and international relations of North Korea, the Korean Peninsula, and East Asia.
Zelenskyy previously accused North Korea in a video speech on Sunday of sending military personnel to fight for Russia against Ukraine.
In his video speech on Sunday, Zelenskyy said: “It is no longer just about transferring weapons. “In reality, it is about transferring people from North Korea to the occupation military forces.”
“We see a growing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea,” he warned.
Zelenskyy urged allies to step up their response to Russia, particularly in terms of lifting restrictions on Ukraine using long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory.
“When we talk about giving Ukraine greater long-range capabilities and more decisive supplies for our forces, we are not just referring to a list of military equipment. It is about increasing the pressure on the aggressor, a pressure that will be stronger than Russia can withstand. And it is about avoiding an even bigger war,” he said.
The United States has expressed concern about reports of a North Korean military presence in Ukraine, but has not independently made the accusation against Pyongyang.
Major General Charles Flynn, commander of the US military in Asia Pacific, said at an event in Washington that North Korean personnel involved in the conflict would allow Pyongyang to obtain real-time information about its weapons for the first time.
“That kind of feedback from a current battlefield to North Korea to be able to make adjustments to their weapons, their ammunition, their capabilities and even their people, to me is very worrying,” he said, speaking at the Center for a New Security. American on Tuesday.
What is the defense pact between North Korea and Russia?
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who rarely makes foreign trips, visited Russia in September 2023 and invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit North Korea.
In June, Putin made his first state visit to North Korea in 24 years, and Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense pact. While the exact text of this pact was not published, the pact includes a mutual assistance clause that calls for the two countries to provide military assistance in the event that one of them is attacked.
On June 23, the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan issued a joint statement posted on the US State Department website, expressing “serious concern” about the pact.
Since then, Ukrainian troops carried out a raid on Russian Kursk on August 6, in an act that could – in Russia's interpretation – potentially constitute an attack, thus triggering the mutual assistance clause in the agreement with South Korea. North.
On Tuesday, tensions rose on the Korean Peninsula when North Korea blew up stretches of roads near the border with South Korea.
Also on Tuesday, journalists asked Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov whether the mutual assistance clause means Russia and North Korea could be drawn into the Ukraine war or the Korean Peninsula conflict, respectively. Peskov did not answer the question, saying only that the language of the treaty was “quite unambiguous” and did not need to be clarified.
He told reporters that the pact “involves truly strategic deep cooperation in all areas, including security.”
Has North Korea provided weapons to Russia?
Once again, the United States, Ukraine and South Korea say so, while the Kremlin and Pyongyang deny it.
On October 9, the Ukrainian military said it had attacked a Russian weapons arsenal, which included weapons sent to Russia by North Korea. The military added that the drone attack in the Bryansk border region was aimed at creating logistical difficulties for Russia and limiting its offensive capabilities.
In the June 23 joint statement, the United States, South Korea and Japan said they condemn the deepening military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, including “the DPRK's continued arms transfers to Russia that prolong suffering.” of the Ukrainian people.”
On February 27, then-South Korean Defense Minister Shin Gained-sik told reporters that North Korea had sent some 6,700 containers containing millions of munitions to Russia since September 2023 in exchange for food and raw materials for manufacturing. of weapons.
In January, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said intelligence found that Russia used at least one weapon provided by North Korea in Ukraine on Dec. 30, 2023. The weapon landed in a field opened in the Zaporizhia region, Kirby said. He said more weapons provided by North Korea were used on Jan. 2.
In April, Reuters news agency reported that United Nations sanctions monitors told the UN Security Council that debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 2 had been identified as belonging to a North Korean ballistic missile of the Hwasong-11 series. This is a violation of the arms embargo imposed on North Korea.
North Korea has been under UN sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs since 2006, and those measures have been strengthened over the years.
In March, Russia vetoed the U.N.'s renewal of a U.N. panel of experts overseeing North Korea's compliance with sanctions. While the sanctions will remain in force, the surveillance force will not.
Why is the military relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang deepening?
Howell, a professor of international relations, told Al Jazeera that the relationship arose from a “largely transactional” need.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it faced global isolation and “North Korea was able to provide the goods Putin wanted, in exchange for getting what he needed in return.”
Howell said that with the signing of the defense pact a “cash for guns” relationship was established. “North Korea provided artillery, which was soon converted to ballistic missiles, and in return Russia provided food, cash and, crucially, military technology assistance.” Advanced military technology is essential for North Korea, Howell explained, “as Kim Jong Un's ultimate goal remains for North Korea to be recognized as a de facto nuclear state.”
In addition to material weapons, Pyongyang gets Moscow's “unwavering support” in the UN Security Council, Howell said. “Pyongyang can then get away with it if it decides to reinforce its nuclear and missile program through tests and launches, which, as we know, is what North Korea intends to do.”