North Korea, longing for battle experience, eyes Ukraine

Seoul, South Korea: The war in Ukraine is providing North Korea's military with something it has long hoped for: opportunities to test its new weapons and its officers' preparedness for modern warfare, analysts and officials in South Korea said Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have said that in addition to providing large shipments of artillery shells and ballistic missiles for Russia, North Korea has been sending military engineers and soldiers to fight alongside Russian troops. Last week, Kim Yong-hyun, South Korea's defense minister, called it "highly likely" that several North Korean soldiers had already been killed in the fighting and that North Korea would send more troops to help Russia.

Moscow helped North Korea fight the Korean War seven decades ago by supplying weapons and pilots. Now, the North's aid to Russia in a distant war is turning history back on itself. It is also, analysts said, strengthening its military preparedness on the Korean Peninsula at a time of growing tensions with South Korea​.

Since the Korean War, North Korea has not fought another major conflict. But it has sought opportunities to sell weapons and other military assistance to friendly countries. It sent pilots to aid North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Its pilots also flew for Egypt in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. North Korea also sent missile technicians and, according to Tass, the Russian state news agency, two small units of combat troops to fight for the Assad regime during Syria's civil war in 2016.

"It has been a pattern: When North Korea has sold weapons to countries at war, they sent personnel not only to help those countries use the weapons, but often also to fight there themselves," said Yang Uk, a military expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. "They don't seem to like missing opportunities to fight in a war and gain experience."

If North Korea sent ground troops to Ukraine, it would be "their first major war in decades, an opportunity where their officers could get a sample of how modern war is fought, including the use of drones," Yang added. "They will study how the knowledge they gain there can be translated into the Korean theater."

Neither Ukraine nor South Korea has presented evidence of North Korean troops. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Wednesday that the alliance did not have definitive information on that possibility.

US intelligence and military officials expressed some skepticism at the Ukrainian claims that North Korean mercenaries were now fighting, in significant numbers, against Ukrainian forces. But they said they had little doubt that North Korean engineers and observers are in Russia and parts of Ukraine, in part to construct and operate the North Korean-made ballistic missiles that Russia has purchased.

There have been unconfirmed reports of North Koreans killed in Ukrainian attacks. But the US officials said that they were recruits. One official said they would not be surprised if North Korea sends troops -- to train and perhaps to fight -- but they did not yet have evidence.

Washington has repeatedly warned of growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, providing photographic evidence that weapons from North Korea, especially its KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles, have been used against Ukraine.

The KN-23 is one of a series of nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missiles North Korea has developed and tested in recent years. It would be one of the main weapons North Korea would use against South Korea should war break out on the Korean Peninsula, military experts said.

"From the battlefield use, North Korea will collect valuable data to improve its missiles' effectiveness -- data it can also use to help sell the missiles to foreign buyers," said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

Analysts in South Korea said North Korea's main personnel contribution to Russia's war would be engineers and weapons advisers to help the Russian military operate its weapons, observe defects and collect data from their battlefield use. Many of the North Korean artillery shells and missiles are said to be of poor quality, turning out to be duds.

Some analysts doubted that North Korea would commit a large number of troops to the war in Ukraine anytime soon.

"That kind of operation requires extensive preparations by both sides, like those annual military exercises South Korea and the United States conduct," said Park Won-gon, a political scientist at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

North Korea is believed to have shipped thousands of shipping containers of artillery shells, missiles and other weapons to Russia since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, United States and South Korean officials say. In return, North Korea may seek Russia's technological help for its nuclear and space programs, as well as opportunities to send its workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied regions in Ukraine and bring home urgently needed income, they said.

Under U.N. Security Council resolutions, countries are banned from employing North Korean workers or engaging in arms trade with the North.

Both Russia ​and North Korea have denied ​engaging in arms shipments from North Korea. Russia also called reports that North Korean troops were fighting alongside ​its troops "another fake news story." In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials and news media have increasingly reported such accusations, without providing photographic or other evidence.

"We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea," Zelenskyy said Sunday. "It is no longer just about transferring weapons. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces."

As North Korea has fueled its partnership with Russia, it has also turned increasingly hostile toward South Korea, demolishing all railway and road links between the two Koreas with dynamite this week in a symbolic gesture of declaring the South as an enemy state.

"The sense of being allied with Russia can embolden North Korea to become more aggressive toward South Korea," Park said.