If North Korean artillerymen are manning these systems they are gaining so valuable military experience considering how important artillery fire will be during any contingency on the peninsula:
North Korea is estimated to have sent about 200 pieces of long-range artillery to Russia and is likely to send more troops and weapons in support of Moscow’s war against Ukraine, South Korea’s defense ministry said Tuesday.
The assessment came after South Korea’s spy agency earlier estimated the North to have sent some 11,000 troops to support Russia, of which 300 are believed to have been killed, with some 2,700 others wounded.
Kim Jong-un was going to build his nuclear arsenal further regardless of the military cooperation between the ROK, US, and Japan:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an elevated U.S. security partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to further bolster his nuclear weapons program, state media reported Sunday.
Kim has previously made similar warnings, but his latest statement implies again that the North Korean leader won’t likely embrace President Donald Trump’s overture to meet him and revive diplomacy anytime soon. In a speech marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on Saturday, Kim said the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership established under a U.S. plot to form a NATO-like regional military bloc is inviting military imbalance on the Korean Peninsula and “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
“Referring to a series of new plans for rapidly bolstering all deterrence including nuclear forces, he clarified once again the unshakable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces,” KCNA said.
Here is the latest on the North Korean troop dispatch to Russia:
This image, captured from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s X account on Jan. 12, 2025, shows a passport he said one of the two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces was possessing. (Yonhap)
North Korean troops deployed to support Russia’s war against Ukraine appear to have been absent from combat in the front-line Kursk region since mid-January, the spy agency said Tuesday.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) disclosed the intelligence, confirming a recent report from The New York Times that North Korean soldiers who fought alongside Russian troops in battle against Ukraine have been pulled from the front lines in mid-January due to heavy casualties, citing Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
“Since mid-January, there have been no signs showing North Korean troops deployed to the Russian Kursk region engaging in battle,” the NIS said.
The spy agency echoed the news report, saying that heavy casualties appear to be one reason for the absence of North Korean troops, adding that efforts are under way to determine the exact reason.
If these Soldiers even wanted to return to North Korea, would the Kim regime even allow them? Officially North Korea has never confirmed they are at war with Ukraine. Accepting these Soldiers back would confirm they are in fact fighting against Ukraine:
The Ukrainian government is open to discussions with South Korea regarding the potential transfer of two captured North Korean soldiers to the South, according to Ukrainian Ambassador to South Korea Dmytro Ponomarenko.
While Kyiv has yet to begin formal negotiations with Seoul, Ponomarenko said Ukraine is willing to cooperate on transferring the soldiers if they refuse to return to their home country.
“Given the threat to the life and freedom of North Korean servicemen in the event of their repatriation to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and if they refuse to go back, we are open for a dialogue with international partners, in particular the Republic of Korea, regarding the possibilities of their transfer to third countries,” Ponomarenko said in a recent written interview with The Korea Times, referring the two Koreas by their official names.
N. Korea’s industrial plant opening ceremony An industrial plant opens its doors in the North Korean border city of Kaesong as part of Pyongyang’s local development plan on Feb. 1, 2025, in this photo released by the North’s Korean Central News Agency the following day. (Yonhap)
It was only a matter of time before someone in the Trump administration said something that the Kim regime could latch on to, to justify future provocations:
North Korea on Monday condemned U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for calling Pyongyang a “rogue state” and vowed powerful counteraction in its first official criticism against the Trump administration.
A spokesperson at North Korea’s foreign ministry issued the statement after Rubio said the United States has rogue states to deal with, such as Iran and North Korea, during his recent interview with U.S. journalist Megyn Kelly.
North Korea condemned Rubio’s remarks for tarnishing the image of a sovereign state, calling them a “grave political provocation,” according to the Korean Central News Agency.
“It is necessary to mention how absurd and illogical it is that the most depraved state in the world brands another country a rogue state,” the spokesperson said, stressing that Rubio’s remarks reaffirmed the U.S. hostile policy toward the North remains unchanged.
Just like the previous administration the Trump administration is negotiating from a starting point of fantasy if they think the Kim regime will ever negotiate away their nuclear weapons program:
U.S. President Donald Trump will pursue the “complete denuclearization of North Korea,” a White House official said Tuesday, amid questions over whether Trump’s recent reference to the North as a “nuclear power” signaled any policy shift.
National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes made the remarks shortly after the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a nuclear-material production base and a nuclear weapons institute in an apparent move to highlight its military capability.
“President Trump will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term,” Hughes said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency.
It looks like the Kim regime may be preparing more Soldiers for the meat grinder in Russia’s war agaisnt Ukraine:
North Korea may be accelerating plans to send more troops to replace frontline casualties incurred fighting Ukraine on behalf of Russia. Pyongyang plans to send Moscow an unspecified number of troops to replace those killed, wounded or imprisoned, according to a Friday report from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The North Korean reinforcements are expected to arrive within two months, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday that cited an unnamed U.S. defense official.
Roughly 12,000 North Koreans may have deployed to Russia as early as October to fight in the nearly 2-year conflict, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have said. Of those, around 3,000 were killed or wounded in fighting in Russia’s western front, South Korean lawmakers Lee Seong-kweun and Park Sun-won, citing a closed-door National Intelligence Service briefing, told reporters earlier this month.
On the North Korean provocation scale, testing a cruise missile is pretty low:
North Korea on Sunday said it tested sea-to-surface strategic cruise-guided missiles, the previous day, in its first provocation since US President Donald Trump officially began his second term.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Missile Administration test-fired the missiles on Saturday, which flew 1,500 kilometers over their flight trajectories for 7,507 to 7,511 seconds before precisely hitting their targets, according to the Korean Central News Agency. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK is North Korea’s official name.
This really is not surprising that the rank and file North Korean Soldiers did not know they were being sent to fight against Ukraine:
One of the two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine this month has claimed that he arrived in Russia without knowing whom he would be fighting, according to another video of his interrogation released by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Earlier this month, Zelenskyy disclosed that his forces had captured the North Korean soldiers in Russia’s western front-line region of Kursk, sharing videos of their interrogation on the social media platform X.
In the latest video posted on Monday (local time), one of the captured soldiers said he arrived in Russia aboard a ship with around 100 others before being transported inland by rail with them.
“Even after coming here, I didn’t know that I would be fighting the Ukrainian people,” the man said in the video in Korean. The video could not be independently verified.
