North Korean troops in Ukraine will have minimal effect - only equivalent to the soldiers Russia loses in a few days and with major language communication problems with Russians
This is a small war between two countries, confined to a small part of Ukraine and Russia. About a fifth of Ukraine and a tiny fraction of Russia. Plus Ukraine doing defensive long range strikes against targets in Russia that are attacking Ukraine or supporting the attack on Ukraine.
North Korea has no interest in Ukraine and Ukraine has no interest in North Korea.
Adding North Korean soldiers to Russia's side of the front line will make no difference. It will still be a small war geographically, confined to the 1000 km+ front line in Ukraine and along the Russian border with Ukraine.
There is no way Russia extends it to an engagement with any NATO country. They can't fight NATO.
[by lose quickly, Admiral Radakin means pushed right out of NATO territory, and any missile systems firing at NATO destroyed - NATO wouldn't try to defeat Russia as it is purely defensive]
There is no way that NK or SK fight in Korea over Ukraine as they have no interest in Ukraine.
And 12,000 NK soldiers are just the equivalent of the soldiers Russia loses in the war killed in a bit over a week. More than that out of action due to injuries. Currently running at over 1,200 soldiers killed per day.
As of May, the UK MoD assessed the total number of Russian soldiers killed since the start of the war as around 500,000 and losing 1,200 a day in May. The numbers per day seem to be still going up so it's more than that now.
QUOTE STARTS
The total number of Russian casualties (killed and wounded) since the start of the war in February 2022 has now likely reached 500,000. Russian losses have continued at a high level in 2024, and in May average Russian personnel casualties were over 1,200 per day – the highest reported since the start of the war.
The elevated casualty rate is highly likely a reflection of Russia’s ongoing attritional offensive which is being conducted across a wide front. It is highly likely that most Russian forces receive only limited training, and they are unable to carry out complex offensive operations. As a result, Russia employs small-scale but costly wave attacks in an effort to weaken Ukrainian defences.
The North Koreans will not add much to this. If true it may well lead to North Koreans captured by Ukraine, because the North Koreans will be fighting in Kursk oblast and Ukrainians often capture Russian soldiers there - which will be interesting.
It's not clear yet whether the North Koreans will fight on the front line or assist in support e.g. supply of munitions, fuel etc to the front line. But whatever they do it may well add to the confusion as the North Koreans don't speak Russian and the Russians don't speak Korean. They will only be able to speak to each other via translators. The Russians find it hard to coordinate between units anyway at the best of times and this seems likely to be more chaotic.
It is not a world war it is just Ukraine fighting North Korean soldiers in Russia. North Korea may find it useful to get combat experience.
Meanwhile if the story is true then South Korea says they will supply weapons directly to Ukraine. Not fight there. Just send them weapons.
This is important because South Korea is one of the world's largest arms exporters.
But it won't export to a country at war normally. However they may make an exception if that country is fighting North Koreans.
It will NOT mean nukes and will NOT mean a world war. Just Ukraine bizarrely fighting North Korean soldiers in Kursk oblast possibly with South Korean shells.
It would NOT lead to fighting in Korea between the two sides.
Ukraine does NOT want soldiers. Ukraine wants
more air defences and air interceptors, they need as many Patriots and other air defence systems as they can get to protect their electricity grid over winter, to protect their cities from direct attacks on civilians, and to protect the front line and the military.
more equipment for its soldiers such as armoured fighting vehicles, tanks, shells, howitzers as they have 30,000 soldiers in reserve not equipped and the hundreds of thousands in their army will also be more effective the better equipped they are.
support for their army of drones, 1.5 million this year, they are often able to overwhelm the Russian drones with their drones.
permissions to use ATACMS against DEFENSIVE target in Russia to push back the glide bombers from air fields near the front line and to target Russia's command and control and supply of fuel, munitions etc to the front line.
funding and technical support to do mass production of their 700 km HRIM2 which they already have which is more capable than ATACMS and could increase in range to 1000 km
if they can be supported with HRIM2 then it will take over from ATACMS as by far their most capable way of targeting the Russian defensive targets behind the front line
- more F-16s and fighter pilot training.
- probably other things specific to their victory plan that are top secret.
The North Koreans may well end up being as much of a liability as a strength because they
- may not be well equipped by Russian standards
- not familiar with Russian ways of doing things.
- trained to be fiercely loyal to Kim Jong Un but how will they respond to being given strange orders by Russian generals? The generals expect Russians to obey unthinkingly even when it means they will die but will North Koreans obey orders to advance with a risk of near certain death from a Russian general?
- major language barriers - they can likely only speak to the Russian officers via translators.
The Russians have always had major problems with coordinating between their different units with soldiers on the ground the air support, tanks, artillery etc all out of phase. nobody knows who is where.
It may well get more chaotic when tens of thousands on teh front line don't know the language of the soldiers they are trying to support and can only communicate via translators who can't be everywhere at once.
It is well possible that adding the North Koreans degrades rather than improves Russia's capabilities. Yet to see what it does.
He just said the war is becoming internationalized. Not clear what that means but all he is proposing on the Ukrainian side is closer coordination with South Korea. It is NOT about SK soldiers joining Ukraine to fight in the war. Ukraine has NO NEED FOR SOLDIERS. It needs equipment not soldiers.
He says
QUOTE 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, and to engage our mutual partners in cooperation. As part of this agreement, Ukraine and the Republic of Korea will soon exchange delegations to coordinate actions.
SK could send observers to take part in interrogations and advise on NK battlefield tactics but not to fight. Unlikely for SK and NK soldiers to meet, only if NK advanced rapidly and encountered observers within a Ukraine unit - when they might fire in self defence. It would have little effect politically since Russia and NK both deny the NK soldiers are there.
The other main possible outcome is that SK may send shells and other materials to Ukraine. However because of a law in SK that it can't directly supply a war zone it may have to supply them to Ukraine's allies instead who would only be able to send Ukraine shells they make themselves. Still SK replenishing their own stockpiles can mean they can send their own stockpiles to Ukraine. The other possibility is SK changing the law but right now the government doesn't have a majority in the SK parliament so that would need to be a bipartisan agreement.
[This could make a significant difference to NK since SK has large stockpiles of shells and is one of the major military suppliers in the world. E.g. it supplies Poland. However, its law prohibits supplies directly to a country at war.]
This would NOT lead to fighting in the Korean peninsula. That is not Kim Jong Un's objective and he likely sees Ukraine as a way for his soldiers to get fighting experience without any risk of confrontation in the Korean peninsula.
QUOTE STARTS
Yonhap said South Korea could deploy military personnel from intelligence units, “who could analyze North Korean battlefield tactics or take part in interrogations of captured North Koreans.”
...
While South Korea has not publicly confirmed or denied plans to deploy personnel in Ukraine, the country has reportedly warned that it would send arms, depending on the level of cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.
This would also mark a departure from Seoul’s long-held policy of not supplying weapons to countries in conflicts, South Korea President Yoon Seok Yeol reportedly said.
...
“I do not foresee the Yoon administration approving the deployment of troops for actual combat operations on Ukrainian soil,” said Nah Liang Tuang, a research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Seoul deploying observers will not be a significant escalation, as Kyiv’s partners have noncombatant observers already in Ukraine, Nah said.
...
... Naoko Aoki, a political scientist at American policy think tank Rand.
Aoki said that there was a possibility of personnel from the two Korean countries coming into contact should both sides deploy them, which could “complicate the situation significantly.” But that will depend on how the North Korean troops are deployed, she added.
Nah said that such an event could occur only if North Korean troops penetrate Ukrainian defensive lines and encounter South Korean personnel embedded with Ukrainian units. “In such a case, South Korean troops would be shooting in self defence, thus limiting the nature of such combat encounters.”
Such an encounter will have little effect politically, given that Moscow and Pyongyang have denied North Korean troops are being employed in the war.
...
While tensions have risen, experts suggest armed conflict is not on the horizon. “North Korea would not want to fight a war on the Korean peninsula when some of its troops are in Ukraine fighting someone else’s war,” Rand’s Aoki said.
Pyongyang’s goal in supporting Russia, she highlighted, is to try to deepen relations with Moscow so that it can gain what it needs from Russia, like information for advanced weapons technology, and combat experience.
“Pyongyang judges that blowback from it’s support of Moscow will not infect the Korean Peninsula,” RSIS’ Nah said. “I would argue that Kim Jong Un sees his relationship with Vladimir Putin in a very transactional light, while being located in a geostrategic silo unlinked with war prospects on the Korean Peninsula.”
South Korea has 3.5 million 105 mm shells that it doesn't need, as it transitions to the longer range 155 mm shells. But they are ideal for Ukrainian fighting conditions. It might try to send those to Ukraine.
. Can South Korean 105-Millimeter Ammunition Rescue Ukraine?
Many stories suggest SK could change its law to supply weapons directly to Ukraine. However, Kyiv Independent citing experts says SK's president will find it hard to change its law about supplying the shells to Ukraine because he is in a politically weak position not able to pass laws easily - but he can supply Ukraine indirectly by replenishing stocks of other countries so they can send not just newly made shells but also their stockpiles of shells to Ukraine. There are limits in what it can do in that way.
. South Korea supplying weapons to Ukraine directly unlikely given legal hurdles, experts say
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