From isolation to battlefield: North Korean troops could face reality shock in Ukraine

"There is evidence that there are DPRK troops in Russia," US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday, for the first time confirming an October 18 report by South Korea’s intelligence agency (NIS) that Pyongyang was propping up Moscow with manpower, and had, as a first step, sent around 1,500 soldiers to Russia’s Far East to train for the trenches. The transfers had taken place between October 8-13, NIS reported, and warned that more were expected soon.

“[It’s] very, very serious,” Austin said.

Shortly afterwards, NATO also confirmed it had evidence of a North Korean troop deployment to Russia.

“If these troops are destined to fight in Ukraine, it would mark a significant escalation in North Korea's support for Russia's illegal war and yet another sign of Russia's significant losses on the front lines," NATO Spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement.

The news comes as South Korean lawmakers say the North Korean troop numbers have now swelled to as many as 3,000, and that the total is expected to land at around 10,000.

Immediate desertions?

On October 15, barely a week after the first North Korean soldiers are believed to have arrived in Russia, Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported that hundreds of North Korean troops had already been deployed close to the front in Russia’s Kursk and Bryansk regions, some seven kilometres from Ukraine’s border. Among them,18 of them had already deserted their positions, it said, citing Ukrainian intelligence sources.

Follow-up reports in Ukrainian media suggested the troops abandoned their postings after being left in a forest area without food or instructions from their Russian counterparts. They were later found and detained by Russian forces.

Although the reports could not be independently verified, they do shine a light on a very particular challenge Moscow and Pyongyang potentially face in trying to incorporate North Korean soldiers alongside the Russian army: their exposure to the world outside of Kim's North Korea. 

Seeing through the lies

“They’re going to find themselves in situations where they can see the light, the lie,” Hugh Griffiths, a UN sanctions specialist and former coordinator of the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea, said, adding that the harsh realities of war, and the difficulty in keeping these troops isolated from the Russian soldiers are bound to have “profound implications on their worldview”.

“North Korea has one of the largest armies in the world, millions are technically under arms, but it’s not a good army, it relies on mass, and none of the soldiers have been battlefield-tested,” he said, noting that Kim’s propaganda that North Korea is “invincible” will be the first bubble to burst, and impact morale.

“The Ukrainians are going to bomb them, and you’re going to see North Korean defeat. That’s not something you see in North Korea: them dying, them not making any progress, them not getting to Kyiv on the back of Russian tanks. It’s not going to go well for them.”

The value of a bummed cigarette

Secondly, North Korean soldiers will be exposed to new types of freedoms they have themselves never enjoyed before, or even knew existed. 

“They cannot be isolated in the same way as they are in peacetime situations, so they will meet Russians who enjoy a marginally higher standard of living, and who have access to mobile phones and social media, like Telegram and so on,” Griffiths said, adding that something as simple as getting hold of a Russian cigarette can make a huge difference in the way a North Korean soldier thinks, essentially “polluting” their censored worldview.

“Russian cigarettes are better than North Korean cigarettes. So that would be a luxury for them.”

Thirdly, Griffiths said, the North Korean troops will be those who are sent into the “meat grinder” of the war, with little Russian concern for their survival in terms also of basic needs like food and water. “They will not be treated well and be used as cannon fodder”.

This, he noted, will spark fear.

“They will realise this is a one-way ticket, so we will likely see desertions and defections.”

Kim’s worst nightmare

Edward Howell, Korea Foundation fellow at Chatham House and author of the book “North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order”, said that defections make up some of Kim’s worst nightmares because they challenge the whole legitimacy of his regime.

“Many elite and non-elite North Koreans who have decided to defect have started off by them recognising that the North Korean regime's view of the outside world and the picture it paints of the outside world is, quite frankly, a lie,” he said.

“And how has North Korea dealt with defections before?” he asked rhetorically, referring to the assassination of Kim’s half brother in a Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017, and the strict domestic controls that have been enforced in the country since Kim came to power in 2011.

That does not mean defections among the troops, who have likely been handpicked because they are young and conform to Kim’s diktats, can be ruled out, however. “For many soldiers, I think the opportunity to defect remains on their minds,” he said.

Pariah states coming together

But according to Howell, this is something that Kim would at least partly have taken into account even before agreeing to prop up the Russian army with any of his own troops. In June, Kim signed a mutual defence pact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts say it is the countries’ strongest deal since the Cold War, and includes a clause that requires both countries to use "all available means" to provide one another with immediate military assistance in the event of war.  

“The benefits are far too great for North Korea to think ‘we’ve made a mistake, let’s not send our troops to Russia’,” he said, and pointed to the money, food, military assistance and satellite technology the pariah state is receiving from Russia in exchange. 

“The only thing the North Korean regime really wants is to be seen as a leader of a de facto nuclear state,” he said.

Griffiths, for his part, noted that the risk of North Korean defections could come at a more than hefty price.

“I think it’s a miscalculation. None of this is going to come out well. For neither Kim nor Putin.”