It has been
confirmed by all parties that North Korea will send troops to Ukraine,
initially more than 10,000 people from one division will be sent to the
battlefield in Ukraine after training, but according to the current situation,
it is not a special force of North Korea, but young recruits who have been
selected, and this time, the troops can receive about 200 million US dollars of
aid from neighbouring countries, and the majority of the soldiers' monthly
salary of 2,000 US dollars will go into Kim Jong-un's personal pockets, and
only a very small amount will benefit the soldiers and their families, and even
if it is consumed during the war, it will also save food for North Korean
military.
It is hard
to say how the direct deployment of troops by North Korea will affect the war
situation. From the point of view of the initial strength of one division, it
will not change the war situation, but it will have a role to play in the
acceleration of NATO's troop deployment. At least France has already made its
attitude towards troop deployment clear in May, and a company of reconnaissance
troops has already begun to conduct a field inspection, but it is said that
they have suffered a great deal of casualties in a short period of time, and so
we have not heard of any news of the French troops' deployment lately.
It is
rumoured that Korean troops will be stationed in the Kursk region to help the
Russians regain their lost territory, but it is difficult to verify this. If
the troops are dispersed and stationed in different positions to carry out
regular warfare, the Korean troops lack basic training, have poor physical
fitness, are unfamiliar with the new weapons and equipment, and have no
knowledge of high-tech warfare, so it is difficult for them to adapt to the new
battlefield environment quickly. It was even difficult for them to carry out
the orders correctly because they did not speak the language.
The most
important thing is who should be in command of the troops. If the troops were
under the command of Korean officers, they should be more powerful, but Korean
officers lacked the experience of the Russian army in the battlefield, so
direct combat would probably result in great casualties. If the troops are
dispersed into Russian units, they are just ordinary recruits. Moreover, the
troops sent by the DPRK this time are not the main force of the DPRK army, but
are general troops recruited and transferred to the battlefield after a short
period of training by the Russian army.
It is
impossible for the army to remain unaffected by the years of sanctions imposed
by the DPRK. The daily food supply for ordinary troops is only 500 grams or so,
which makes it very difficult to perform duties, not to mention basic military
training. Due to the long-term malnutrition of the nationals, the height
requirement for enlisting male soldiers is only 1.45 metres, and the first
thing that soldiers of this quality have to do is to replenish nutrients to
recover their physical strength and to adjust their bodies to keep them in good
health before they can undergo adapted military training.
Of course,
there is no doubt about the will of the DPRK army to fight, especially its main
force, but after all, in the present high-tech environment of modern warfare,
in the face of Ukraine's superiority in weaponry with the support of the West,
it is naturally out of place to rely on the tactics of the past. Although the
number of North Korean troops participating in the war is not large, with the
needs of the war, if we can deploy 10 divisions of more than 100,000 troops, or
can play a role in the battlefield. At least after accumulating some combat
experience, they can replace the Russian army for rest and recuperation, fill
the holes in the battle line, assist in completing military projects, and share
some of the combat tasks.
Now that
the Russian and Ukrainian armies are locked in a stalemate, and all sides have
a high demand for additional troops, a large increase in the number of North
Korean troops would be very favourable to the Russian army in every way.
Moreover, the Korean army has traditionally inherited the Soviet Union's
establishment, and has recently supplied a large number of weapons to the
Russian army, so the Korean army is very familiar with the use of self-produced
weapons. The Korean army is familiar with the use of its own weapons. It is
difficult for the Korean army to bring its combat power into full play in the
battlefield of Russia and Ukraine, where it has been consuming a lot of troops,
and facing the attack of Ukraine's superior weapons and equipments.
However, if
the DPRK continues to increase its troops, it will at least have a numerical
advantage. South Korea is now sensitive to North Korea's response to the
troops, in order to provide weapons and ammunition to Ukraine and send military
personnel, if the South Korean troops to participate in the war will have a
significant impact on the Russian-Ukrainian war, so that is equivalent to North
Korea and South Korea in the Ukrainian war officially started, the development
of which will naturally lead to the Korean Peninsula, the development of direct
war, and ultimately lead to the Chinese, Japanese and U.S. parties involved in
the process.
It is inevitable that the war between North Korea and NATO will deteriorate into a world war between Russia and Ukraine. However, from what we have seen so far, the scale of North Korea's troop deployment is not large and the number of troops is not large, not the main force is completely of a trial nature, and the subsequent large-scale deployment of formed and regular main force is doubtful. Kim Jong-un's million-strong army is ill-equipped with limited combat power, and if a large number of troops are consumed overseas, it will directly affect his family's rule in Korea.
It would be more in line with Kim Jong-un's long-term goal to exchange Russia's
food, energy, military equipment, technology and neighbouring countries'
economic interests for a limited number of troops, and then make adjustments as
the future develops. Therefore, the participation of North Korean troops in the
war should not be over-interpreted, and from the present point of view, it is
just a means for Kim Jong-un to earn foreign exchange.