North Korea wades into Ukraine

In mid-September Ukraine struck ammunition depots deep inside the interior of Russia. Ukrainian-manufactured long-range drones hit the cities of Toropets and Tikhoretsk. The general staff of the Ukrainian military assessed that Tihoretsk was the Kremlin’s third-largest ammunition depot.

Notably, North Korean KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles were being stored at the facility too. Ukraine also claimed a train had delivered more than 2,000 tons of ammunition before the strike, including North Korean artillery rounds.

Russia is using these missiles and munitions to bombard Ukrainian villages, towns, cities and critical infrastructure. Pyongyang is aiding and abetting Moscow’s campaign of terror that is targeting, killing and maiming Ukrainian civilians daily.

According to The Times, North Korea is now supplying “half of the [artillery] shells used by Russia.” Western intelligence officials estimate that this equates to nearly “three million [rounds] a year.” This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Pyongyang became a principal member of Russia’s arsenals of evil in August 2023, when then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu travelled to Pyongyang to persuade North Korea to sell artillery ammunition to Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin sealed the deal a month later during a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok.

In return, Kim was offered military technology that would advance North Korea’s military satellite and nuclear-powered submarine capabilities, along with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. At the time, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned that “arms negotiations between Russia and [North Korea] are actively advancing.” 

Kim apparently also sent North Korean soldiers to Ukraine as part of his deal with Putin. Last Thursday, six North Korean officers were killed and three servicemembers wounded in a Ukrainian missile strike near Donetsk. According to Russian social media posts, Russian forces were demonstrating “infantry assault and defense training” to the North Koreans before the missile strike. 

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported last year that a small contingent of servicemen from North Korea arrived in the Donetsk Oblast, including engineering units. That may have been an advance party for a larger contingent. 

South Korean TV network TV Chosun, citing a South Korean government official, reported on June 21 that South Korea expected North Korea to deploy a large-scale engineering force to the Donetsk Oblast as early as July 2024. The cover story at the time was that the force would help rebuild infrastructure in Donetsk City.

This is a significant escalation in the Ukraine war — a third-party nation with military “boots on the ground” directly or indirectly supporting combat operations. 

As the war enters its 32nd month, the Russian military has sustained at least 664,120 casualties. In Putin’s mind, massed infantry and artillery win. To sustain the Kremlin’s mind-numbing World War I-like full frontal “meat assault” tactics, Putin is forced to turn to conscription, mercenaries, penal colonies, foreign fighters and his ‘arsenals of evil’ to sustain his insatiable appetite for artillery ammunition. 

It should not come as a surprise that Kim has stepped up — the indicators have been present.

Russian state TV claimed in 2022 that Kim had offered to provide 100,000 “volunteer” forces in Ukraine. Russian defense pundit Igor Korotchenko then amplified the message on Russian Channel One, explaining that North Korea had a “wealth of experience with counter-battery warfare.” 

In a separate report in August 2022, Pyongyang purportedly planned to send more than 1,000 workers to Donbas if Russia “wins the war” to assist in rebuilding a post-war Ukraine. In September 2022, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said that North Korean construction companies had already offered to help rebuild war-torn areas in Donbas, and that North Korean workers would be welcomed. 

North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow reportedly met with envoys from the Donbas region and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration.”

In February 2023 the South Korea-based Daily NK, citing a source in Russia, reported that the North Korean government intended to send up to 500 soldiers or police personnel to the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts “to take part in reconstruction efforts.” 

Then, in June of this year, Russia and North Korea signed a strategic partnership treaty, which provided “mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the participants.” Clearly that assistance would be against Ukraine, whose ongoing defense is supported by NATO. 

Prior to signing the treaty, North Korea had been providing Russia with ballistic missiles and artillery ammunition. The U.S. State Department estimated that Pyongyang had supplied more than 11,000 containers of munitions to Russia since September 2023. 

What was not definitively known at that time was whether Kim had deployed soldiers, advisors and observers to support the Russian war effort. 

When asked by a reporter at a June 25 Pentagon Press briefing about North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder responded, “That’s certainly something to keep an eye on. I think that if I were North Korean military personnel management, I would be questioning my choices on sending my forces to be cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine.”

The Pentagon appears to have taken their eye off the ball. The presence of North Korean military “boots on the ground” was confirmed Oct. 3. The task and purpose of Kim’s soldiers killed and wounded remains undetermined, but their presence alone is cause for concern.

As the Institute for the Study of War stated in its June 26 update, there is no reporting to suggest that North Korean military personnel intend to participate in combat operations in Ukraine. But “the engineering deployed to the region can free up Russian combat power for operations along the frontline and aid Russian efforts to expand military infrastructure and defensive fortifications in occupied Ukraine.”

South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun told lawmakers on Tuesday that North Korea is likely to deploy members of its regular armed forces to Ukraine in support of Russia. He stated, “As Russia and North Korea have signed a mutual treaty akin to a military alliance, the possibility of such a deployment is highly likely.”

The White House needs to refocus its attention on North Korea’s support for the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Kim’s weapons are killing Ukrainian civilians in their homes, and their physical presence on the ground could, regardless of their active or passive support, pull other Eastern European countries into the war. 

The wider regional conflict the White House has warned about in Europe may be coming to fruition — and the silence from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is deafening.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.