Four awkward questions about North Korean troops in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

In the last few hours we have finally had visual confirmation of a fact about which Ukrainian intelligence had given the alert.

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Yesterday afternoon, the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security of Ukraine (SPRAVDI) released this video with the following text: "Newly obtained footage from Russia's Sergievsky Training Ground showing North Korean troops being outfitted in Russian gear in preparation for deployment to Ukraine."

Exclusive - Newly obtained footage from Russia's Sergievsky Training Ground showing North Korean troops being outfitted in Russian gear in preparation for deployment to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/01Z4jZIiOe

— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre (@StratcomCentre) October 18, 2024

SPRAVDI has added a tweet with this statement from Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense: "By November 1, almost 11,000 North Korean soldiers will be ready to fight in Ukraine ."

Much has been written in recent days about the quality of these reinforcements. These soldiers come from the most secretive communist dictatorship in the world, a country with a poor population whose regime has spent 71 years justifying the highest levels of oppression on the basis of constant paranoia focused on the possibility of a new war with South Korea and the United States. These 11,000 North Korean soldiers now have a great opportunity to defect, something that would not be so easy if they had remained in their country. In fact, on October 15 the Ukrainian media Suspilne reported that 18 North Korean soldiers had already escaped from their positions in the Russian regions of Bryansk and Kursk.

These Ukrainian reinforcements would be cannon fodder sent by Kim Jong-Un to Russia within the framework of the defense pact signed by both dictatorships in June. Even if they are poor quality soldiers with more reasons to desert than to fight, these reinforcements allow Putin to avoid the unpopular mobilization of an equivalent number of Russian citizens, at a time when Russia has already resorted to common prisoners in Russian prisons, some of them convicted of serious blood crimes, to obtain soldiers.

In connection with the arrival of these North Korean reinforcements, I would like to raise four questions that some may find uncomfortable:

1. Will Western countries react or will they remain paralyzed by fear of an "escalation"? Ukraine needs support and is seeing military aid dwindling lately. Likewise, Joe Biden continues to refuse Ukraine permission to use its long-range US missiles against military targets in Russia from which the Ukrainian civilian population is being attacked, and meanwhile Russia is using Iranian weapons to kill Ukrainian civilians and is now also enlisting North Korean soldiers for its invasion. Ukraine is fighting alone against the alliance of the West's worst enemies: Russia, Iran, China and North Korea.
2. How are pro-Russian propagandists in the West going to justify these North Korean reinforcements? They have been spreading lies for years about the alleged presence of regular soldiers from Western countries in Ukraine without providing a single piece of evidence, and now we have clear evidence of the arrival of regular North Korean troops in Russia to participate in the invasion of Ukraine. Once again it is clear that it is Russia that is fueling this war, which was provoked by Putin for the sake of his expansionist delusions.
3. How does this alliance between Russia and a brutal communist dictatorship fit into the slogans of some conservative pro-Russian propagandists? They have been telling us that Moscow is the Third Rome, they have been trying to convince us for years that Putin is a conservative reference and a great defender of Christians, and at the same time the Kremlin has as an ally the North Korean communist dictatorship, which is the regime that most harshly persecutes Christians.
4. How does the alliance between Russia and North Korea fit into the schemes of a certain "anti-globalist" right? Some authors from this ideological sector have been claiming that the political divisions of the Cold War are a thing of the past, that our alliance with the democratic countries of the West is meaningless and that today the debate revolves around a dichotomy between patriotism and globalism. However, the Russian Federation, which considers itself the legal heir of the USSR, maintains its alliance with communist dictatorships (Cuba, China and North Korea) and has been expanding it to other socialist dictatorships such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, in addition to strengthening ties with the terrorist regime in Iran.

I hope that we will soon have an answer to the first of these questions, because it is becoming increasingly clear that what is happening in Ukraine, as in Israel, is a war in which one country is fighting alone against the enemies of the West. If Ukraine and Israel were to fall, we would soon have this threat closer to our borders, and some would have an even harder time convincing us that these conflicts do not affect us and that we should not even take a position in them.

I don't expect an answer to the other three questions, or at least I don't expect a coherent and convincing answer. So far we have had abundant evidence that pro-Russian propagandists have been systematically lying and poisoning, so I don't expect anything from them but more lies. As for those who are looking for excuses to justify their "anti-globalist" discourse in relation to this war, will they try to convince us that Russia and North Korea are the champions of patriotism?

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Photo: Dieter Depypere/Bloomberg. North Korean soldiers on parade in Pyongyang in 2010.