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Five months ago, the autocratic leaders of Russia and North Korea signed a treaty on mutual defense and cooperation, deepening ties between the two countries that stretch back beyond the Cold War.
Now, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has deployed soldiers to assist Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. More than 600,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded since President Vladimir V. Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Wednesday, the United States confirmed that North Korean troops had landed in Russia to join the fight against Ukraine, a major shift in Moscow’s effort to win the war. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III called the North’s presence a “very serious” escalation that would have ramifications in both Europe and Asia.
“What exactly are they doing?” Mr. Austin told reporters at a military base in Italy. “Left to be seen.” He gave no details about the number of troops already there or the number expected to arrive.
North Korean soldiers started reaching the Russian Far East this month, sailing on Russian Navy ships, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency. There are 3,000 North Korean soldiers on Russian soil at the moment, the agency said on Wednesday, and their numbers are expected to swell to 10,000 by December.
This week President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine suggested that North Korea was preparing 12,000 soldiers to fight on the Russian side.
Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the claims, and no hard evidence has emerged that North Korean troops have yet walked onto the battlefield.
North Korea has one of the world’s largest militaries, with 1.2 million soldiers, but it has not fought in a major conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War. For decades, Pyongyang claimed that its military buildup was for deterrence of war on the Korean Peninsula. Dispatching troops to the Ukrainian front would represent its first major intervention in an overseas war.
Here’s what to know about North Korea’s growing military ties with Russia.
How is North Korea helping Russia?
Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin have met twice since last year, signing the treaty in Pyongyang in June. Mr. Putin has relied on Mr. Kim to replenish his dwindling weapons stockpiles.
South Korean defense officials have said that North Korea has sent more than 13,000 shipping containers of artillery rounds, anti-tank rockets and KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles to Russia since August 2023. It also dispatched technicians and officers to help the Russians operate its weapons and to collect data on how its missiles fared in modern warfare, especially against Western air-defense systems.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said on Friday that Russian Navy ships transported 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the Russian port city of Vladivostok between Oct. 8 and Oct. 13. The troops were then said to move deeper inland to the cities of Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk. They were given Russian military uniforms, weapons and forged identification documents so that they could pose as people from eastern Siberia, where indigenous Buryat and Yakut people bear Asian facial features, according to the intelligence agency.
The South also released satellite photos showing what it called Russian Navy ship movements near a North Korean port and hundreds of suspected North Korean soldiers assembling in Ussuriysk and Khabarovsk last Wednesday.
“The troops are expected to be deployed to the front lines once they complete their acclimatization training,” the agency said.
North Korea is prepared to send more troops to the Russian war effort, it added, noting the frequent traffic of Russian transport planes between Pyongyang and Vladivostok.
What do North Korea and Russia want?
Mr. Putin wants to overcome the heavy casualties that Russia has suffered on the front lines in Ukraine.
“This is an indication that he may be even in more trouble than most people realize,” Mr. Austin said.
“But again, he went tin-cupping early on to get additional weapons and materials from D.P.R.K., and then from Iran, and now he’s making the move to get more people, if that is the case, if these troops are designed to be a part of the fight in Ukraine,” Mr. Austin said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
North Korea has been one of the few countries to support the Russian invasion publicly. That backing has provided Mr. Kim with rare leverage to chart a new course for foreign relations after the collapse of his negotiations with former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Kim’s military support guaranteed that Mr. Putin would veto any new American-led attempt to impose new sanctions on North Korea at the United Nations Security Council and undermine efforts to enforce the existing ones. North Korea has also been receiving oil from Russia, which would help it sustain its confrontational stance toward the United States and its allies, South Korean officials said.
Less clear is whether Mr. Putin will go so far as to help North Korea overcome technological hurdles in its nuclear and missile programs. Although it has conducted six nuclear tests and launched several intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea has yet to master technologies to enable its missiles to reach targets in the United States.
Some analysts say that by sending troops to help Russia, North Korea is emulating a path that South Korea took decades ago.
Seoul cemented its alliance with Washington by committing nearly 320,000 troops to the Vietnam War, the largest foreign contingent that fought alongside American forces. In return, the United States helped modernize South Korea’s decrepit military. It also helped spur its ally’s economic growth with cheap loans.
How has the world responded?
Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the existence of an arms deal, or reports of North Korean troops in Russia.
The strongest reaction has been from South Korea, which has faced increasing belligerence from the North. Seoul has deemed the growing military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang “a grave security threat” and a violation of multiple United Nations resolutions barring any member nation’s military cooperation with North Korea.
On Tuesday, the office of the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, accused the North of “driving its young people into an unjustifiable war as mercenaries.”
It warned that it could take “phased countermeasures” to respond to the growing “military collusion” between Moscow and Pyongyang. Such steps could include supplying both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, a senior South Korean official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
So far, Seoul has limited its direct support for Ukraine to humanitarian and financial aid and nonlethal military equipment, such as mine detectors.
South Korean officials say that by committing troops to Russian forces in Ukraine, North Korea hopes to win Russia’s military support in return, such as help in perfecting its nuclear program and modernizing its outdated conventional weapons systems. That assistance from Moscow would be crucial if the North started a war with the South.
According to Cha Du Hyeogn, a senior analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, the deepening military ties with Pyongyang “mean that Russia now regards North Korea’s nuclear weapons development not as a problem to solve but as something it can accept.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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