North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could use his country’s troops that are fighting for Vladimir Putin against Ukraine as leverage for Pyongyang pursuing provocations in East Asia.
That assessment, by geopolitical analyst Sang Hun Seok, Indo-Pacific Visiting Fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), comes as South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Wednesday that North Korean troops have moved to Russia’s Kursk region over the past two weeks.
Putin seemed to warn about hostilities between North and South Korea, who fought a war that ended in 1953, during the Valdai discussion forum on November 7.
In repeating tropes about how the West and NATO was the cause of the war in Ukraine, Putin said: “They simply forced us to respond, in this sense they achieved what they wanted,” adding, “it seems to me the same thing is happening in Asia, on the Korean Peninsula.”
Pyongyang has been generous in its help for Russia’s war effort, reportedly supplying around eight million artillery shells and short-range ballistic missiles since 2023, worth up to $5.5 billion, in a country with a GDP of $29 billion.
But this military largesse has also been bolstered by an estimated 10,000 troops fighting for Putin. This could see Kim expect a quid pro quo quite soon, especially after a treaty ratified this week saw Moscow and Pyongyang pledge to come to each other’s aid in an armed attack.
North Korea now has “greater leverage in seeking Russian support, should it decide to make a serious armed provocation in the region,” Sang Hun told Newsweek. “Pyongyang might become even more adventurous, expecting that Russian support would prevent a strong response from both Seoul and Washington.”
The increased burden of defending the Korean Peninsula could make Seoul focus on a more narrowly defined national security, he said. It means that Washington will need to consider how this might impact allies’ ability to contribute to security efforts beyond Northeast Asia if the need arises.
The entry of a third country into the war started by Putin is both a problem for the international community and of growing concern for South Korea, which has warned it could send military monitors as well as weapons to Kyiv, potentially ramping up tensions on the peninsula.
“South Korea will have to ask difficult questions, not least by reconsidering its reticence towards supplying lethal aid directly to Ukraine, but also the prospect of sending military personnel and observers to monitor the actions and strategy of North Korean soldiers,” said Edward Howell, Korea Foundation Fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London.
“A further benefit that North Korea is gaining, by sending its soldiers to fight against Ukraine, is combat experience in a modern, and now global, war,” he told Newsweek.
“South Korea will indeed be considering the prospect—whilst currently hypothetical—of North Korea procuring advanced military technology and knowhow from Russia, which it could use in ramping up provocations against Seoul.”
Pyongyang could also get a transfer of nuclear and ballistic missile technologies from Moscow, which would help Pyongyang’s increasing belligerence. Days before Americans went to the polls, North Korea launched short-range ballistic missiles soon after the nuclear-armed secretive state test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
South Korean defense minister Kim Yong-hyun said on October 31 that while Seoul will send monitoring or analysis teams to Ukraine in response to North Korea’s presence in the war, he added “we are not considering sending troops at all,” news outlet KBS reported, according to a translation.
In any case, a poll last month showed nearly three-quarters (74.2 percent) of South Koreans oppose providing lethal weapons to Ukraine with only one-fifth (20.5 percent) in favor, meaning any bigger military commitment from Seoul would be politically unpopular.
Russia provides cover for North Korea on the international stage, using its permanent member status on the United Nations Security Council to veto efforts to impose sanctions. During North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui’s visit to Moscow this month she backed Russia’s victory in Ukraine.
How the war plays out could temper what North Korea expects in return for sending its troops from the East Asian peninsula to a European battlefield. “At the moment, Russia has a more urgent war to fight,” said Sang Hun, “Pyongyang should be aware of this.”
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