North Korea sending troops into Ukraine could supercharge an already-close partnership with Russia

On Monday, in a meeting with Russia’s ambassador to Seoul, South Korea demanded the troops’ withdrawal, the Associated Press reported.

Footage shared with CNN by the Ukrainian government also appears to show North Korean troops being kitted out with uniforms and equipment in the far east of Russia.

According to the NIS, the troops have even been given Russian uniforms and fake IDs.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also said North Korea is preparing to join the fight.

North Korea has denied the reports.

A ‘dramatic’ step

If true, the movement of troops “represents a dramatic step in North Korea foreign relations,” said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert in North Korean defense at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

There have been plenty of reports of North Koreans aiding Russia, but only in limited numbers and largely in a technical capacity — advisors, engineers, and munitions experts tasked with observing how North Korean munitions are faring. Few of them are likely to have crossed into Ukrainian territory.

Bermudez also said that there is “a significant level of racism” within Russia’s military, despite the country’s wide ethnic diversity — and said the North Korean troops may start out at the bottom of the pecking order.

Other experts said North Korean troops would experience the roughest end of Russia’s notoriously brutal military hierarchy, which marks some as expendable.

“The grim reality is that the North Korean troops will likely simply be cannon fodder for Russia,” said Edward Howell, a North Korea expert at the University of Oxford.

Jim Hoare, a former diplomat for the UK in North Korea, agreed. “I think it’s going to be a nightmare, actually,” he said.

Hoare also pointed to the risk of North Korean troops defecting, which would loom over any deployment.

In a report this month that BI was unable to verify, Ukrainian state broadcaster Suspilne cited an anonymous intelligence official as saying that 18 North Korean servicemen had deserted so far.

A dangerous partnership

Troop deployments to Ukraine would be a sign that the relationship between Russia and North Korea is “much closer and more dangerous than we want,” Bermudez said.

Western officials have generally dismissed the growing partnership between the countries as a desperate arrangement between rogue states, each with nowhere else to turn.

But in the short term at least, the partnership has worked for both sides.

Pyongyang receives a trade lifeline and vital military insight. North Korean weapons have been a significant help for Russian advances in Ukraine in the last year, according to The Times of London .

Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, seemingly upped the ante this summer, signing a “mutual-aid” agreement that confirmed “the full support and solidarity of the DPRK government and people to the Russian government and people as regards the special military operations in Ukraine,” per North Korean state media.

According to Howell, the agreement said that each country would provide the other with mutual assistance in the event of an external attack, but it was “deliberately vague.”

In Howell’s view, what was initially a purely “transactional” relationship with little ideological kinship has “escalated to new heights.”

Russia and North Korea don’t care about being seen as delinquent actors in defying sanctions, said Howell.

“They don’t care about their international status being lowered,” he added. “And I think that’s what makes this particularly concerning.”