Vladimir Putin is betting that North Korean troops will recapture Kursk from Ukraine

Hundreds of North Korean troops were filmed at military bases in Russia's Far East, training ahead of their deployment in Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine, according to Kiev and its Western allies.

The North Korean troops are disguised as Buryats and Yakuts, ethnic minorities from Siberia who make up a disproportionate share of Moscow's armed forces. They are part of a 12,000-strong force designed to help Russia retake the Kursk region, which has been partly held by Ukraine since August, according to video footage released by South Korean intelligence.

The contingent represents the first use of a foreign army in this war since the Russian president ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, although Moscow has also reached out to allies including North Korea and North Korea in response to Western military support for Ukraine Iran, to obtain weapons.

Pyongyang has previously supplied Russia with artillery ammunition and other weapons, such as the KN-23 ballistic missile, which was accompanied by North Korean officers to oversee its use on the battlefield.

The force is likely too small to turn the tide of the war, as Russia would need to double its 50,000-strong contingent in Kursk to drive out Ukrainian troops and initiate a new wave of mobilization to make major advances along the Ukrainian front Analysts.

But North Korea's ability to help offset Russia's numbers could cause even more problems for Ukraine, said Jack Watling, senior research fellow in land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute.

“They could have a pretty good bond. They might have reasonable morals. “They could potentially operate on a scale that the Russians would have difficulty achieving,” Watling said. “It’s a pretty low hurdle to be better than what the Russians have right now.”

The North Korean reinforcements come amid signs that Russia is struggling to replenish its troops amid staggering losses in Ukraine, which Western officials estimate at more than 600,000 dead and wounded.

According to Western intelligence officials, Putin has resisted pleas from his senior leadership to order another round of mobilization, instead offering volunteers huge bonuses for signing up.

Although this helped Russia maintain its pace of 30,000 recruits per month for most of this year, several Russian regions have dramatically increased payouts in recent months, suggesting the army may be struggling to attract more men.

The Belgorod region, which borders Kursk, increased its signing bonus for recruits three-fold from Rbs800,000 ($8,300) in August to Rbs3 million in October – a life-changing sum when the average monthly wage in the region last year was Rbs55,000 Rbs ($570). .

The domestic fighting has prompted Russia to bolster its forces from abroad, Western intelligence officials said. “North Korea is Russia’s new best friend,” one of the officials added.

Although Russia is likely to encounter obvious command and control problems, its experience in conducting operations with government troops, Iranian-backed forces and militias in the Syrian civil war would give Moscow's leadership an obvious model to build on, Watling said.

According to South Korean intelligence, the troops being sent to Russia are from North Korea's Eleventh Army, an elite unit known as the “Assault Corps.”

“These are not ordinary North Korean soldiers, most of whom never receive proper combat training,” said Go Myong-hyun, a senior fellow at the South Korean state-affiliated Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul. “These are well-equipped, highly trained mobile light infantry.”

The North Korean forces will arrive just as Russia has pushed back the Ukrainian army in Kursk and the land area it holds has shrunk from about 1,000 square kilometers in late August to 600 to 700 square kilometers in October.

Unlike the Ukrainian front line, where troops defend and attack from established positions, in the Kursk region the front line is not defined. This means that Russia cannot resort to its most tried and tested methods: rolling infantry attacks accompanied by constant artillery fire.

But Russia is exploiting its air power advantages in the Kursk region by bombing its own villages where it detects a Ukrainian presence, forcing those soldiers to flee.

“Every position and settlement there can change several times a day,” said Serhiy Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv. “We have significant losses. . . We also have constant rotation and replenishment, and considering this is happening, we can assume that the fighting is quite intense,” said Kuzan, who recently visited Ukrainian rear positions and conducted the operation from Sumy, just across the border , monitored.

Russia's goal is to force Ukraine into a position where it is untenable to hold the width of the front by putting pressure on it at multiple points along the line, Watling said.

“Ukraine’s possession of this territory in the Kursk region involves constant costs,” he added.

The North Korea operation consolidates the relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang that has flourished since the beginning of the war. Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a deal in June that includes a mutual assistance clause promising “immediate military and other assistance” in the event of war. North Korea was also the first of only two countries, along with Syria, to recognize Russia's partial annexation of four Ukrainian frontline regions in the fall of 2022.

Kim has “always wanted” to send troops to Ukraine, Go said, as it would give him greater influence over Moscow and potentially give him access to advanced Russian military technologies to advance his ballistic missile, space and nuclear programs .

According to Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, Moscow could reward North Korea with much-needed finance, food and fuel or deepen its partnership with the isolated communist state through the transfer of advanced weapons.

This could include the transfer of advanced weapons designs, cooperation between Russian and North Korean scientists in missile technology and underwater warfare.

The threat could prompt South Korea to increase its support for Ukraine in retaliation, Gabuev added. Seoul has resisted requests from Western partners to supply Kiev with weapons amid fears Russia would offer advanced defense technologies to Pyongyang in response.

Aside from modest donations of non-lethal military and humanitarian assistance, Seoul limited its aid to replenishing U.S. stocks of 155mm artillery shells sent to Ukraine.

But on Tuesday, a presidential official told South Korean state media that Seoul would consider sending defensive weapons to Kyiv, “and if a threshold is exceeded, we may ultimately consider offensive weapons as well.”

That could mean that Kiev will receive stocks of South Korea's impressive arsenal of howitzers and missile defense systems, as well as other military equipment, in addition to 105mm and 155mm artillery shells.

South Korea will also likely simultaneously increase covert diplomacy with China, Russia and North Korea's main partner to prevent any transfer of modern weapons, Gabuev said.

“China has signaled that it is not very happy with the deepening military ties between North Korea and Russia,” Gabuev said. “South Korea may well make a case to China that it will increase cooperation with the United States on the Korean Peninsula if China does not address this issue.”

But North Korea's ultimate goal in sending troops would be to secure Russia's commitment to intervene on its side in any conflict on the Korean Peninsula, which would dramatically change ideas about how a war there might play out, Go said.

“Just a few years ago, Russia was at least nominally committed to enforcing U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program,” he said.

“Everything that South Korean and US military planners have assumed regarding the possible development of a conflict on the peninsula must be reconsidered.”

Cartography by Steven Bernard