Category: North Korea

As has been predicted here by myself and other ROK Heads, North Korean troops are being used to push Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk region:

The United States confirmed Tuesday that North Korean troops, who have been deployed to Russia’s western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat operations against Ukrainian forces.

Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, made the remarks amid growing concerns that the North’s troop deployment could expand Moscow’s protracted war in Ukraine with security implications for both Europe and the Indo-Pacific region. (…..)

“Today, I can confirm that over 10,000 DPRK soldiers have been sent to eastern Russia, and most of them have moved to far western Kursk Oblast, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but using the North Koreans to fight in Kursk makes sense because Russia would then not need to redeploy their own troops continuing their long grinding offensive in Ukraine.

If the focus of a summit is denuclearization of North Korea it would be a pointless meeting because Kim Jong-un will never agree to getting rid of his nukes. However, negotiating away his ICBM program and stopping proliferation I think are achievable goals:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may seek another summit over its nuclear program with US President-elect Donald Trump following his second-term win, but the chances for a meaningful deal appear to be lower, given the North’s enhanced nuclear capabilities, analysts said.

During his first term, Trump hosted the first-ever summit between American and North Korean leaders with Kim in Singapore in 2018, followed by another summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, the next year. But they failed to produce a deal to curb North Korea’s nuclear program.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Oh how nice, North Korea had a celebratory rocket show in honor of the U.S. election:

North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, in the latest saber-rattling just hours ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches at about 7:30 a.m. from the Sariwon area in the western province of North Hwanghae, and they flew about 400 kilometers before splashing into the sea.

A JCS official told reporters that the latest launches apparently involved the North’s KN-25 super-large 600-millimeter multiple rocket launchers. The weapon system is believed to be capable of striking anywhere in South Korea when fired from Sariwon.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is actually a pretty good deal for the Kim regime considering they only sent what appears to be a few thousand troops to Russia:

Rep. Wi Sung-lac, who was Seoul’s ambassador to Russia, told The Korea Herald that entering the war against Ukraine is “not a bad deal at all” for North Korea.

For one thing, the country’s financial and food crises are largely taken care of by Russian compensation for its contribution to the war effort, said Wi, who was briefed by the NIS as a member of the National Assembly intelligence committee.

The NIS reported to the Assembly last week that each North Korean soldier sent to fight for Russia would be paid a monthly wage of around $2,000. At least 10,000 North Korean soldiers are believed to be headed for Ukraine, translating to yearly revenue of well over $200 million, the lawmaker said.

In addition to troops, about 4,000 North Korean workers are currently in Russia, according to the NIS. Their average wage is thought to be about $800 a month.

Wi said every year on average, North Korea produces around 4 million tons of grain such as rice, barley and wheat, according to its own announcement. But most of the country’s “rice production” is actually potatoes, with rice thought to make up less than a third of the total, he explained.

“The 4 million tons of grains that North Korea says it produces per year are actually about 1 million tons short of what it needs to feed the country. If Russia is offering 600,000 to 700,000 tons of rice, that is enough to cover more than half of what North Korea would need to meet the year’s demand,” he said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Who knows how true this is, but apparently 7,000 North Koreans are now deployed near Ukraine’s border with Russia:

 Kyiv’s defense intelligence agency has said Russia appears to have deployed more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers, armed with AK-12 rifles, mortar rounds and other assault weapons, to areas near the border with Ukraine. 

South Korea and the West have warned that North Korean troops in Russia may soon enter into combat against Ukraine that would pose a major security threat to both Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.

The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) said on Saturday (local time) that Russia moved more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers from Russia’s coastal region to areas near Ukraine last week.

“The North Korean troops were moved to the frontline with the help of at least 28 military transport aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces,” the DIU said on its website.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears the North Korean ICBM has been modified to have even greater range now:

North Korea fired what could be a new intercontinental ballistic missile toward the sea east of the Korean Peninsula on Thursday, a day after South Korean defense intelligence authorities warned of Pyongyang preparing to stage large-scale provocations in the run-up to the US presidential election.

The missile flew for approximately 86 minutes, the longest time of any North Korean missile to date, traveling about 1,000 kilometers before falling into the waters between North Korea and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. The missile was launched at a deliberately raised angle to reach a maximum altitude of 7,000 kilometers, a record height.

This ICBM is the first that North Korea launched since December last year, when it tested the solid-fueled Hwasong-18, which has a potential range of around 15,000 kilometers on a normal trajectory. The last ballistic missiles North Korea fired were multiple short-range ballistic missiles this September.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest information being put out about the North Korean troops dispatch to Russia:

A contingent of North Korean troops, including high-ranking generals, deployed to Russia may now be positioned on the front lines of the Ukraine war, South Korea’s spy agency reported Tuesday, adding that the Kim Jong-un regime appears to be clamping down on information about the troop dispatch internationally.

“Troop movements between Russia and North Korea have been assessed as underway, with the agency examining the potential relocation of certain personnel, including high-ranking military generals, to the front lines,” Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party told reporters following the closed-door parliamentary audit of the National Intelligence Service.

“Russia has been training North Korean troops on around 100 Russian military terms, including terms such as ‘to the position,’ ‘artillery fire’ and ‘launch.’ However, there are indications that the North Korean military is struggling with these terms, leading to predictions that resolving communication issues will be difficult,” Lee conveyed in the NIS briefing.

Lee said the NIS also briefed that the Kim Jong-un regime has been “struggling to devise internal security measures in light of the spreading leak about troop deployments.”

The NIS, according to Lee, detected indications that “commissioned officers were banned from using mobile phones due to concerns over military secrets being leaked. Soldiers in the deployed units were ordered to remain silent, while families of the deployed were falsely told that they were merely participating in training exercises.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.