North Korea’s foreign minister arrived in Russia on Tuesday for talks as the Russia-Ukraine war appeared to take a dangerous new turn, with NATO and South Korea expressing alarm that North Korean troops could soon be joining in on Moscow’s side.
NATO said on Monday thousands of North Korean troops were moving toward the front line, a development which has prompted Kyiv to call for more weapons and an international plan to keep those troops at bay.
U.S. officials have said any North Korean troops fighting in the war would be “fair game” for Ukrainian attacks and that Washington would not impose any fresh limits on
Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons if North Korean entered the fight.
South Korea, which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North decades after the 1950-1953 Korean War, also condemned the deployments, with officials in Seoul worried about what Russia may be providing to Pyongyang in return.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in Russia’s Far East on Tuesday on her way to Moscow, Russian state media said. Russian state news agencies said it was not clear who Choe, making her second visit in six weeks, would meet.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet her.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday that the North Korean moves were sending the war into a new phase.
“This war is becoming internationalized, extending beyond two countries,” Zelenskyy said on X.
“We agreed to strengthen intelligence and expertise exchange, intensify contacts at all levels, especially the highest, in order to develop an action strategy and countermeasures to address this escalation,” he said.
Yoon told Zelenskyy that if North Korea receives aid from Russia and is able to glean military experience and knowledge from its involvement in the war, it would pose a “great threat” to South Korea’s security, his office said.
South Korea has said it may start supplying weapons to Ukraine if North Korean troops joined Russia’s war. Putin has not denied the presence of North Korean troops in the country.
Symbolic?
What role the North Korean troops may play is unclear.
“The numbers make this more than a symbolic effort, but the troops will likely be in support roles and constitute less than 1 percent of Russia’s forces,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank said in a note.
“Russia is desperate for additional manpower, and this is one element of Russia’s effort to fill the ranks without a second mobilization,” it added, noting the presence could grow.
The troops are also likely to play a political role for Russia and North Korea, strengthening their hands in relations with China, which has an uneasy partnership with both countries,
and sending a message to Washington and its allies, Western diplomats and analysts said.
“The closer Moscow’s ties to Pyongyang, the more leverage it expects over U.S. allies as well as China,” Gilbert Rozman, of The Asan Forum, wrote for the U.S.-based 38 North programme.
Moscow needed a partner hostile to the status quo, wary of China but unwilling to antagonize it, and helpful in meeting arms or perhaps labor needs, he said.
A few thousand North Korean troops will not change the course of the war so it may be a Russian attempt to underscore to the United States just how disruptive Moscow can be if it wants to be, said one diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Integrating North Korean troops into a very complex war machine is not easy. But using their presence to scare the United States and its allies in Asia is quite simple,” the
diplomat said.
With Reuters inputs