‘Now Everything Depends On Kim Jong-Un's Greed’

Will North Korean troops appear in Ukraine?

Western media write that North Korea may send its military to Ukraine to actively participate in the war. How realistic is this scenario? Charter97.org talked about this with Ukrainian military-political observer of the Information Resistance group Oleksandr Kovalenko:

— In June of this year, information already appeared that North Korea was allegedly sending engineering brigades to Ukraine. And in general, I took it quite seriously then, since the Russian army really does have a serious problem with engineering units and special equipment.

It would be quite logical and rational if Putin made a request for engineering brigades during his meeting with Kim Jong-un. As we can see, no engineering brigades appeared from June to mid-October. If we consider this type of units, then it least of all requires serious adaptation and integration into the general military order.

First of all, it is worth paying attention to the serious language barrier. An engineering brigade is a unit that receives some highly specialized order, for example, to de-mine an area, mine an area, build a fortification, evacuate equipment, restore a water supply, erect anti-personnel obstacles, and so on. And they carry out their task.

If we are talking about combat units, assault units that will be used during offensive operations, then the communication is at a completely different level. It must be interconnected with other units. And it seems to me that until we really fully verify a certain number of some formations of the North Korean army as part of the Russian army, it is too early to talk about this.

There are prerequisites: Russia has a serious demand for human resources. And this concerns both a highly specialized resource, for example, the same engineering brigades, and this also concerns assault units, where infantry is simply thrown onto the lines as live meat and ground up in a meat grinder.

This need exists, and I would not be surprised if such requests are made. We are already seeing similar actions in Russian recruiting companies around the world, the same Nepal, countries in Africa, Asia, that is, all this is present. But to what extent will they be able to really satisfy their needs with the North Korean resource, will Kim Jong-un give precisely the human resource — I would still wait for verification in this matter. For example — at least 10-20 captured North Korean attack aircraft, somewhere around a hundred bodies somewhere in a field near Pokrovsk.

— What can influence Kim Jong-un's decision to give or not give the Russian army his military?

— It all depends on the degree of his greed, because he already supplies Russia with artillery ammunition, as well as ballistic missiles at exorbitant prices. North Korea receives payment from Russia in both cash and precious metals, bitcoins are also used for this, plus technology.

Now the DPRK has begun to receive them (especially in matters of rocket production) much more actively. If Kim Jong-un weighs all the pros and cons, he may well send several brigades to help Russia, and in return receive technology. For example, the K-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic weapon, perhaps aircraft manufacturing technology. It all depends on what price Kim Jong-un sets.

— Will there be an international reaction, because this is an expansion of the war? Can the West, the same South Korea, respond somehow?

— I would like to, because it is one thing when Ukraine is at war with Russia, and at the same time the Russian Federation uses an element of mercenarism, recruiting in other countries. And when fully-fledged personnel formations of a particular country, for example North Korea or Iran, begin to participate directly in military actions, Ukraine is not fighting against one aggressor country, Russia.

Here we have a coalition of countries that participate not in the format of military-technical support for Russia, but in the format of a full-fledged invasion. In this case, North Korea can be considered fully as a country that carries out occupational aggressive actions against Ukraine.

In this case, there should also be a coalition reaction, because the passive reaction of the civilizational world leads to the fact that rogue countries act more and more decisively.

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