North Koreans In Ukraine Appear To Be Young, Malnourished "Cannon Fodder"

The North Korean troops sent to Russia appear to be relatively young, untrained and malnourished, suggesting that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is trying to see how expendable troops perform before sending more valuable forces. 

Vladimir Putin seems to believe that warm bodies which may soon be cold are fine for now. The battle-hardened Ukrainian forces in Kursk oblast are waiting. JL

Dasi Yoon and colleagues report in the Wall Street Journal:

The North Korean troops sent to Ukraine are young—teenagers or in their early 20s—and in the early stages of military conscription. The soldiers appear relatively short and slightly built, reflecting widespread malnourishment across impoverished North Korea. most of Kim’s soldiers, even those considered elite, suffer chronic food shortages and corruption. Their training would have focused on mountainous South Korea, a far cry from the trench warfare in the flat plains along the Ukrainian-Russian border. “Mere cannon fodder mercenaries.” Kim Jong Un, North Korea's dictator, may want to gauge internal reaction—as well as the Kremlin’s—by first sending those deemed expendable.

The North Korean troops nearing Russia’s front lines with Ukraine may not be the cream of the crop in Kim Jong Un’s army.

They are seemingly young—teenagers or in their early 20s—and likely in the early stages of military conscription, according to video footage and intelligence officials. The soldiers appear relatively short and slightly built, reflecting widespread malnourishment across impoverished North Korea, military analysts say. 

Their special-forces training would have focused on assassinations and infrastructure destruction in mountainous South Korea, a far cry from the trench warfare unfolding in the flat plains along the Ukrainian-Russian border. The fresh-faced troops have likely never left North Korea. The country’s army operates aging and outdated conventional military equipment.

“Mere cannon fodder mercenaries,” South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun told lawmakers on Thursday, in an assessment of the troops. 

About 3,000 of the soldiers arrived this month in Russia, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian assessments. They were spotted at various Russian military training sites last week, and some had already arrived in Kursk, the Russian border region partially occupied by Ukraine. The first North Korean troops could be deployed to the battlefield as early as Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s 40-year-old dictator, may want to gauge internal reaction to the move—as well as the Kremlin’s—by first sending those deemed relatively expendable, said James JB Park, a former South Korean defense and national-security official. 

“They will pave the way for the more experienced ones,” said Park, now a Kelly Fellow at the Pacific Forum, a Hawaii-based think tank. That is, if Russian President Vladimir Putin requests more reinforcements—or Kim sees reasons to live up to the two countries’ recently strengthened bilateral commitments, he added.

A billboard in Moscow promoting service in the Russian army. Photo: Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Ukrainian soldiers unload the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in eastern Ukraine. Photo: Bram Janssen/Associated Press

It is not clear yet what role the North Koreans would play. They could, without fighting, bring their country valuable gains: insights from observing the use of drones and war conditions, especially with the Russians using North Korean munitions and missiles. But a combat role for North Korea would represent a major escalation of the conflict that has stretched on for more than 2 ½ years, U.S. and NATO allies have said.

The initial deployment to Russia’s Kursk region may reflect an effort to portray it as a defensive measure, said Samuel Cranny-Evans, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. 

“Deploying only to Russia would allow Pyongyang to claim that it is helping restore an ally’s territory,” he said.

Putin on Friday said the choice to use North Korean forces was a Russian decision. The same day, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, without confirming the deployment, said if the country had dispatched troops it would have done so in compliance with international law. Kim enjoys near absolute power in information-repressed North Korea. That limits any political blowback he could face at home should soldiers die in action. The families of the troops have apparently been isolated and moved en masse to unknown locations, to limit knowledge of the Russia deployment, South Korea’s intelligence chief told lawmakers last week.  

By December, North Korea could end up sending a total of 10,000 troops to Russia, South Korean officials estimate. Kim often hails his military as the “strongest in the world.” But North Korea hasn’t engaged so deeply in a major conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense pact in June, during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang. Moscow can offer Pyongyang much more than it can receive, such as political cover at the United Nations, humanitarian aid and military technology. 

But one thing that the Kim regime can provide is people. 

North Korea is one of the world’s most militarized societies, with roughly a third of the country’s 26 million people either enlisted or in reserve forces. Men face compulsory military duty of eight to 10 years; women must serve for five years. Earlier this month, some 1.4 million young people applied to join or return to the army, North Korean state media reported. 

South Korea’s intelligence agency said part of the deployed North Korean troops are members of its special-operations force. The force has an estimated 200,000 personnel, who are trained to destroy critical military installations and assassinate key personnel, according to South Korea’s 2022 Defense White Paper. 

A South Korean news broadcast shows satellite images of a Russian military facility that officials said contained North Korean soldiers. Photo: Kim Jae-Hwan/Zuma Press

Earlier this month, North Korean state media revealed images of its special forces training with laser-tag style gear designed to simulate combat, of a kind long-used by Western militaries. 

If they were thrown into the front lines, the North Koreans would enter the killing fields of a war that many of their Russian comrades consider a meat grinder. Russia can recruit more than 30,000 fresh troops a month, though it often loses as many killed or wounded in Ukraine, according to Western estimates. 

The troop churn reflects Russia’s decision to adopt tactics that haven’t evolved much from World War II. Russian soldiers are often sent headlong into a kill zone just to seize the next house or simply to establish where the Ukrainian positions are. In a no man’s land of ruined buildings and devastated treelines, they have been hunted by reconnaissance and attack drones.

Given that, some 10,000 North Korean soldiers would have a limited impact on the battlefield as a whole, but they add to the mass Russia is bringing to bear against its smaller neighbor and somewhat alleviate Moscow’s need to draft its citizens. Russia is seeking to maintain pressure on Ukraine and its backers in the West to show that its resources and will to win are superior.

The North Korean troops could help achieve some limited objectives, such as seizing entrenched Ukrainian positions, but the contingent is also “small enough that Kim Jong Un can contain the potential risk within North Korea from any attempt at a military mutiny should the operation go badly,” said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, a research organization based in Washington, D.C. Russia has used foreign fighters in the war before, including mercenaries from Nepal, Cuba and Syria. But North Korea’s contingent appears to be the largest and the first to be sent directly by a foreign government. 

Despite grand military parades showcasing the regime’s forces, most of Kim’s soldiers, even those considered elite, suffer chronic food shortages and corruption, former North Korean soldiers say. Special forces troops are better fed and trained compared with the rest. 

 

The soldiers dispatched to Russia have been given fake identities and Russian uniforms, according to Seoul’s intelligence agency.

Ukraine’s military-intelligence agency has released a Korean-language video targeted at the new arrivals. The video shows Ukraine’s prisoner-of-war camps, with a sunlit room featuring separate single beds. Prisoners will be regularly fed. 

On its “I want to live” Telegram channel, the agency has encouraged North Korean troops to surrender, offering phone numbers they can call for instructions. 

The North Korean soldiers, should they fight on the front lines, will likely face challenges from the language barrier and a lack of joint training with the Russians, military experts say. Exposure to outside information in Russia could also pose a risk to the Kim regime, should the soldiers make their way back to North Korea, they say. 

“But for Russia, as it faces a troop shortage, the North Korean soldiers can play a helpful role in its defenses,” said Jeon Kyung-joo, a research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.