North Korea’s troops in Ukraine reveal Putin’s weakness

The war for Ukraine is widening. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Wednesday that North Korea is dispatching thousands of troops to Russia, marking a significant escalation in its conflict with Kyiv.

Vladimir Putin is pulling Kim Jong Un deeper into the war — yet he is also revealing a weakness: The Kremlin is running low on recruitable troops at home.

North Korea’s infusion of fresh soldiers will remain practically risk-free for Pyongyang, unless the United States returns to its aggressive sanctions posture against the Kim regime.

Russia is no stranger to employing foreign armies.

Cossack warriors famously fought for the tsars in centuries past.

At the end of World War II, the Red Army bolstered its ranks with Mongolian troops when it invaded China.

Today, the “TikTok soldiers” of Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov are scattered across Ukraine’s front lines.

And now, after nearly three years of fighting, Putin is running low on cannon fodder.  

The Kremlin is finding it difficult and expensive to entice more of Russia’s poor and desperate to sign up for the war — even with promises of bonuses and good pay.

In theory, Moscow could alternatively force millions of its fighting-age men into the Ukrainian meat grinder through conscription.

In practice, this option is politically perilous.

The Putin regime discovered the dangers of the draft when it briefly attempted a “partial mobilization” in September 2022.

Unwilling to see their sons and husbands shipped off to Ukraine, Russians responded with howls of opposition.

The government quickly backed off of the effort — informing many that their call-up orders were issued by “mistake.”

Since then, Russia has relied on mercenary groups and lucrative payouts — sometimes as high as $30,000 — to make the “golden handshake” in exchange for military service in Ukraine.

Even these enticements are proving to be insufficient for the Kremlin’s manpower needs.

By providing fresh troops to Russia, North Korea will likely help to backfill some, but not all, of Moscow’s gaps. 

Austin warned the news is a “very, very serious issue,” but cautioned that the precise contribution of Pyongyang’s troops remained unknown.

For the Kim regime, support for Russia has many strategic benefits and few risks.

The first is protection from United Nations sanctions. Russia has used its Security Council veto to repeatedly shield North Korea from international monitoring and penalties for its prohibited missile tests and nuclear weapons development.

The second is a security guarantee from the world’s largest nuclear power.

This summer, Moscow and Pyongyang agreed to a NATO-style mutual defense pledge.

Both promised to aid the other in the event of war.

Third, North Korea’s troops will gain valuable combat experience — if they survive.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Kim regime will likely benefit from Russian technology transfers that could greatly accelerate its missile and nuclear programs.

In exchange, the costs to North Korea are a pittance.

An expeditionary force of roughly 12,000 soldiers is small potatoes compared to Kim’s million-man army. 

His related shipments of around three million artillery shells to Russia is also a small fraction of his total stockpile.

The danger to Ukraine is great, however.

According to a senior Ukrainian official, the addition of North Korean artillery on the battlefield has been “much worse than the Shaheds,” the Iranian-designed kamikaze drones that Russia is using to pound Kyiv’s troops and infrastructure.

Best of all for Pyongyang, the Biden-Harris administration has not done enough to put pressure on North Korea. In fact, sanctions on the Kim regime have “atrophied” since the Trump administration, according to counterproliferation expert Anthony Ruggiero.

As in the case of Russia sanctions, a major target for aggressive US action should be North Korea’s foreign sources of cash.

We should be strangling the Kim regime of the money it needs to support its nuclear program and enrich its elites. Without this resource, helping Russia would be less of a priority.

The Treasury Department has taken some steps to target these funds — but they have not been sufficient.

What’s more, Congress has done little to compel the White House to fully squeeze North Korea’s illicit revenue streams.

Since the United States cannot rely on the UN to impose and enforce sanctions on North Korea, it falls to Washington to step up.

Failing to do so will give the Kim regime license for its support for Russia to metastasize — and more Ukrainians will die as Putin sustains his war with outside help.

Peter Doran is adjunct senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.