A family in Kyiv watches TV news reports that North Korea is sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine on the side of Russia, on Nov. 4.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
For more than two years, a Ukrainian military program has been letting Russian soldiers know they can surrender if they don’t want to fight in a war that has already taken tens of thousands of lives.
But the message broadcast by the bluntly named “I Want To Live” project has sounded very different in recent days, broadcasting a Korean-language video on Ukrainian television and social media that’s aimed at the more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers now training in Russia and positioned close to at least one part of the front line.
On Monday, Ukraine said North Korean troops had come under Ukrainian fire for the first time, though few details were given about the clash. It reportedly took place in the Kursk region of Russia, which has been under partial Ukrainian occupation since a surprise cross-border offensive this summer.
North Korean troops sent to Russia may be pleased to be there, even as they face intense battle
If the North Koreans have indeed joined the fighting, it marks the further internationalization of a conflict that has already seen Russia turn to its allies North Korea and Iran for fresh supplies of ammunition, ballistic missiles and explosive drones. Meanwhile, Ukraine is reliant on massive amounts of military aid from the United States and NATO.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed frustration in recent days that Russia’s allies are escalating their involvement in the war while Ukraine’s backers have been slower in recent months to deliver promised supplies and continue to place restrictions on how Ukraine uses the weapons it has received.
Among those restrictions is a ban on using Western-supplied long-range missile systems to strike at targets deep inside Russia. Mr. Zelensky said that has prevented Ukraine from hitting the camps where the North Koreans are training. “America is watching, Britain is watching, Germany is watching. Everyone is just waiting for the North Korean military to start attacking Ukrainians as well.”
While Ukraine still holds part of the Kursk region, Russian troops have continued to press ahead on the war’s main battlefield in the southeastern Donbas region of Ukraine, gaining more than 400 square kilometres in October alone. Even without the North Koreans, the Russians hold a manpower and equipment advantage of seven or eight to one along some parts of the front.
“This is a war of two countries against one,” Mr. Zelensky said in a series of social-media posts late last week. He said Russia and North Korea were watching to see how the West and South Korea react to the first deployment – and that more North Korean troops would follow “if the response is weak.”
A residential building in the centre of Kyiv, which was attacked by Russia using a Hwasong-11 (KN-23/24) ballistic missile manufactured in North Korea, on Jan. 4.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
Video message aimed at soldiers
Despite Mr. Zelensky’s frustration, the “I Want To Live” video conveyed confidence that the North Koreans would face certain death if they fought in Ukraine.
“Soldiers of the Korean People’s Army who were sent to help the Putin regime: You should not die senselessly on someone else’s land! There is no need to repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home. Surrender into captivity! Ukraine will shelter, feed and warm you!” a voice says over scenes of a prisoner-of-war facility that looks more like a summer camp. There are images of a leafy yard with picnic tables, plates of meat and pasta, as well as clean beds – two to a room – with kittens sleeping on them.
North Korea will back Russia until victory in Ukraine, foreign minister says
When The Globe and Mail visited a Ukrainian military prison in September, it looked little like the facility shown in the Korean-language video. Some Russian prisoners of war were living 10 to a small cell.
Among the many unknowns is whether the North Korean troops will arrive at the front line looking to avoid battle – and perhaps escape their repressive homeland – or whether they will feel honoured to have been selected for the mission and highly motivated to serve North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s hermetic regime.
“No one knows about the effectiveness of these soldiers. We only have stereotypes. We will understand, unfortunately, only from the fight,” said Nataliya Butyrska, an East Asia expert at the New Europe Centre, a Kyiv-based think tank. Ms. Butyrska said the North Korean soldiers likely had little idea about where they were going or what the war in Ukraine was about.
“The North Koreans live in real isolation from the rest of the world. I think Kim Jong-un and his generals told them, ‘You have to go to Russia,’ and they go.”
The Korea Herald, a newspaper headquartered in Seoul, reported Sunday that South Korean intelligence has assessed that Russia is paying US$2,000 a month for each soldier to Mr. Kim’s regime, with only a fraction of that likely to reach the soldiers and their families. Moscow is also believed to be sending Pyongyang 700,000 tons of rice and providing assistance to its military satellite program as part of the deal.
Ukraine calls for sanctions over alleged North Korean involvement in war with Russia
China’s position so far
One troubling question for Ukrainian officials is whether China – the Kim regime’s main economic and political backer – supports North Korea’s growing involvement in the war. China has claimed it had no foreknowledge of the deployment, and Washington has been pressing Beijing to use its influence to prevent Pyongyang from sending more troops.
Few in Kyiv believe China was caught off guard. Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on foreign policy and international relations, said he met with Chinese representatives at last month’s ASEAN summit in Laos and asked them to use their influence to curb the shipments of ammunition from North Korea to Russia. He was rebuffed.
“I’m sure that if China really wanted to prevent North Korean ammunition and troops and soldiers from North Korea going to Russia, they could do it,” Mr. Merezhko said.
Dmytro Kuleba, a former Ukrainian foreign affairs minister, told The Globe that the arrival of the North Korean troops revealed that Moscow’s allies were willing to go further than Ukraine’s to make sure their side won.
“The truth is that Russia has friends who are ready to send not only weapons but also their soldiers,” Mr. Kuleba said. “This should be a wake-up call to everyone in the world.”