Russian naval vessels transported around 1,500 North Korean special-forces troops to Russia this month, and Pyongyang has plans eventually to send as many as 12,000 soldiers to assist Russia, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.The U.S.and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies have warned that dispatching North Korean troops to the front lines in Ukraine would represent a major escalation in the conflict between Moscow and the Washington-led West.
While Western support for Ukraine has been driven by strategic defense interests and what NATO calls shared Western values, Moscow’s alliances with North Korea and Iran remain largely transactional, said Alexander Gabuev, Director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.“They’re handsomely paid, they can test their hardware, they’re provided with combat experience,” he said, adding that it didn’t mean the relationships don’t have staying power.“Even if it is transactional, there’s no deal the West could offer at this point that would tempt any of them to sell their partners down the river,” he said.
Most of them have never been abroad and have spent their lives inside North Korea’s tightly controlled information bubble.“It’s out of character and highly risky for North Korea,” Tertitskiy said.“It will be hard for Kim to motivate his people to fight in a faraway land without knowing why they’re fighting.”Russia’s use of North Korean troops and weapons mirrors its growing military ties with Iran, which has supplied missiles and Shahed drones to the war effort.
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