Multiple outlets in Ukraine and South Korea reported this week that communist North Korea is preparing to send military engineers to aid the Russian invasion of Ukraine – reports Pyongyang has not confirmed at press time, but the Pentagon addressed on Tuesday as concerning.
The alarm regarding the potential presence of the North Korean armed forces in the Ukraine war theater follows a brief but consequential visit to Pyongyang by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who signed a mutual defense treaty with his counterpart, communist tyrant Kim Jong-un, that requires either country to act in the event that one of the parties is attacked.
North Korean state media – the only legal source of news in North Korea – celebrated Putin’s visit for days, heralding him as a friend of the communist rogue state. It has also published with increasingly frequency propaganda pieces condemning Ukraine and updating citizens on Ukrainian attacks on Russia, which may constitute actionable events within the text of the mutual defense treaty. Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has publicly offered clarity on what sort of military action could trigger the activation of the treaty.
Initial reports that North Korea may be preparing to intervene in Ukraine surfaced on June 21 on the conservative South Korean network TV Chosun. TV Chosun claimed, citing an anonymous South Korean official, that North Korea would “deploy a large-scale engineering force to occupied Donetsk Oblast as early as July 2024 to assist in rebuilding infrastructure in the occupied city of Donetsk,” according to a translation by Ukrainska Pravda.
Donetsk is one of the two Ukrainian regions and comprise the eastern territory known as the Donbass, where war between the Ukrainian military and Russia-backed separatists group simmered for nearly a decade before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Putin annexed Donetsk – alongside the other Donbass territory, Luhansk, and the eastern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – in September 2022.
The TV Chosun report contradicted statements by Putin himself the day before in which he claimed that neither Russia nor North Korea was requesting the other’s military assistance at the moment.
“As for the possibility of somehow using each other’s capabilities in this conflict. Well, we are not asking anyone for this, no one has offered it to us, so there is no need,” Putin said, according to a report in the Russian outlet Interfax translated by the Ukrainian military.
In this photo released by Government of Primorsky Krai Region, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, centre, walks past honour guard soldiers prior to leaving Artyom, near Vladivostok, Russian Far East on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023. (Government of Primorsky Krai Region via AP)
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder received a question on Tuesday about reports amplifying the TV Chosun claims and the potential of North Korea becoming a player in the Ukraine invasion.
“Ihat’s certainly something to keep an eye on,” Ryder responded. “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.”
“And we’ve seen the kinds of casualties that Russian forces – so – but again, something that we’ll keep an eye on,” he added.
The independent North Korea monitor outlet NK News reported on Thursday, however, that as of June 27 North Korea has not announced any such deployment or confirmed the reports.
“While this possibility cannot be ruled out completely, neither North Korea nor Russia has made any such announcements so far,” NK News observed. It noted that the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the flagship North Korean state media outlet, reported on Thursday that Central Military Commission Vice-Chairperson Pak Jong Chon expressed support for Russia in the invasion recently but did not mention the deployment of any North Korean forces.
Concerns of a potential escalation in Ukraine fueled by North Korean soldiers remains present, however, especially in light of past reports indicating that the Russians have turned to deceiving young men from countries such as India and Cuba and forcing them to fight on the front lines. The nature of the mutual defense treaty, as well, as caused alarm.
According to Putin, the deal is a “comprehensive partnership” that “provides for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this treaty.” The definition of “aggression” in this context remains unspecified, however, leaving the possibility of Pyongyang intervening unclear.
While North Korea has not publicly stated it would join the Ukraine invasion, its state media has churned out a growing volume of anti-Ukraine propaganda, condemning the government of Ukraine as an aggressor “puppet” regime under the auspices of the United States. North Korea is technically at war with the United States, South Korea’s top ally, as the 1950 Korean War never ended with a peace agreement or a formal surrender by either party.
On Thursday, KCNA published a screed condemning Kyiv for using American ATACMS missiles to target occupied Crimea. Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, a precursor to the 2022 invasion that prompted no meaningful response from American then-President Barack Obama.
“The Ukrainian military gangsters committed an inhuman crime of killing civilians by attacking Sevastopol City of Russia [sic] with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles tipped with cluster bombs on June 23,” KCNA noted, calling the strike a “terrorist attack” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“What cannot be overlooked is the fact that the Zelenskiy puppet clique carried out the above-said bloody attack right after its American master lifted the restrictions on its use of U.S.-supplied weapons for the attack on the Russian territory,” KCNA proclaimed.
“Russia’s stronger response for safeguarding the national interests and lives and security of its citizens is a just right to legitimate self-defence never to be refuted by anyone,” the state outlet insisted.