Tag: North Korea

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.

The locals are concerned that these balloon launches could lead to a North Korean provocation against them which is why there has been so much pushback:

A South Korean activist group called off its plan to launch balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North across the heavily fortified frontier on Thursday after facing local opposition and police prevention due to potential security risks to residents.

Choi Sung-ryong, head of the Association of the Families of Those Abducted by North Korea, announced that the organization would cancel its decision to scatter propaganda leaflets in the North during a press conference held at the National Memorial for Abductees during the Korean War in the western border city of Paju, Gyeonggi Province.

The group had initially planned to float some 100,000 copies of the leaflet made of plastic — containing photos and descriptions of six abductee victims — attached to large balloons along with one-dollar bills on this day.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the activists are now saying they are going to instead fly drones into North Korea instead which will actually be more provocative than the balloons.

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.

This was very predictable that North Korea would be preparing a provocation that coincides with the U.S. presidential election:

Military officials attend a parliamentary audit of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the National Assembly in Seoul on Oct. 30, 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

North Korea has completed preparations to launch a long-range missile and has put a mobile launcher in place, South Korea’s military intelligence agency said Wednesday.

The Defense Intelligence Agency gave the assessment during a parliamentary audit, noting the launch could take place before or after the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.

“It appears that preparations are nearly complete for an ICBM-class long-range missile, including a space launch vehicle,” the DIA said, according to Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party and Rep. Park Sun-won of the main opposition Democratic Party.

“Preparations for a transporter erector launcher are complete, and it has been deployed to a certain area,” the agency added, though it said no missile has been mounted yet.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This would be the next logical step in escalation from North Korea. With that said they have already flown drones multiple times over South Korea in the past showing how hypocritical their claims against the ROK now are:

Inter-Korean tensions are escalating over propaganda leaflets, as North Korea threatened, Monday, to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to drop leaflets over Seoul. The North also reiterated its claim that the South Korean military recently sent leaflet-distributing drones into its territory.

“It would be interesting to see how they will bark if a drone appears in Seoul and scatters leaflets,” Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said in a statement via the North’s mouthpiece Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Noting a hypothetical situation, she said, “An unidentified drone appears over Seoul and scatters leaflets denouncing ‘the puppet Yoon,’” apparently referring to President Yoon Suk Yeol. “Our military, individual organizations, or any individual have not flown any drones, cannot confirm such actions, and do not consider it worth responding to.”

Her remarks appear to sarcastically criticize the South Korean military’s response to North Korea’s claims that the South sent a drone carrying anti-regime leaflets over Pyongyang earlier this month and that they found debris from a UAV of the same type operated by the South Korea’s military. In response to these claims, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, “We cannot verify (the claim), and the claim is not worth replying.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the initial wave of 1,500 North Korean special operations troops sent to Russia are going to be used to try and help push Ukrainian troops out of the Russian territory of Kursk:

 Russia is using civilian-plated trucks to transport “mercenaries” from North Korea to a frontline area, Ukraine’s military intelligence service has said, amid concerns over North Korean troops possibly joining combat in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

On Sunday, Russian police officers stopped a truck with civilian license plates carrying North Korean military personnel on the Kursk-Voronezh highway, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said, noting the driver did not have a combat order.

The announcement comes amid reports of North Korean troops gathering in Russia’s southwestern region of Kursk, where a major Ukrainian incursion took place in August.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.