Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov has reported that his country's troops have engaged in battle with North Korean soldiers for the first time. According to US sources, North Korean soldiers are now actively fighting in the war, primarily in the Russian region of Kursk. Commentators find the news that Moscow's new ally is on the front lines in the Ukraine war alarming.
A huge geopolitical risk
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The deployment has the potential to change the global security situation, the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany) frets:
“For Pyongyang, the hoped-for technology transfer is all-important. Kim wants Moscow to share its expertise in the construction of long-range missiles so he can advance his nuclear weapons programme. This poses a huge geopolitical risk that extends far beyond Ukraine. The situation on the Korean peninsula has long been unstable. A more modern and better-equipped North Korea could pose an even greater threat to US ally South Korea than it already does.”
Ukraine needs equal opportunities
Espreso (Ukraine) calls for all restrictions on military actions by Ukraine to be removed:
“With the deployment of North Korean troops, all restrictions should be lifted so that Ukraine can defend its territorial sovereignty. Not to mention the fact that Putin's Russia has been importing weapons from North Korea that it can use to strike anywhere in Ukraine. Meanwhile the US and the entire West are still hesitating to allow the Ukrainian military to strike targets deep in Russian territory. This again deprives Ukraine of equal opportunities in the war against the Russian Federation.”
British Defence Intelligence Update Ukraine 23 December 2024
Little more than cannon fodder
The North Korean soldiers recruited for Russia have little chance of survival, the Irish Examiner concludes:
“Not one of the young men drafted from Kim Jong-un's regular army of around one million - the 'strongest in the world', according to Kim - has seen combat. And they will be fighting on unfamiliar territory, with new weapons and in uniforms bearing the flag of a country, Russia, they know little about. While their arrival relieves pressure on Russia to draft more of its own citizens ... experts believe the military dividends for the Kremlin will be limited. ... The soldiers, thought to be mostly in their teens or early 20s, have been trained in mountainous North Korea and have no experience of the large, flat battlefields of Ukraine.”
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