EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — The Pentagon said Monday that North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to Russia to train and deploy to the battlefield in Ukraine within “the next several weeks.” The new estimate is more than triple the previous figure of 3,000 troops the Pentagon gave last week, and closer to Ukraine’s account that 12,000 North Korean soldiers had arrived in Russia.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh also said that some of the North Korean forces have already moved closer to Ukraine, and added that if the troops deploy to the front lines, the U.S. will view them as “co-belligerents in the war” who are valid targets for Ukraine to hit with U.S.-provided weapons.
Also on Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed Ukrainian intelligence reports that some North Korean soldiers are already in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukrainian forces have held territory for more than two months. That would mean that North Korean forces have already entered the Russia-Ukraine war on Moscow’s side — though they remain on Russian soil.
As The Cipher Brief has reported, a North Korean deployment to Ukraine would mark the first time a third country had put boots on the ground in the war, marking an unprecedented and potentially dangerous global expansion of the conflict. Experts and officials have warned that it could also lead other countries, in particular France, Poland and South Korea, to consider sending their own forces to Ukraine in response.
Cipher Brief senior international correspondent Ia Meurmishvili spoke with Ukraine’s former Minister of Defense, Andriy Zagorodnyuk about what the involvement of North Korean forces in the war might mean. To Zagorodnyuk, it’s an extreme example of Russian efforts to create an anti-West bloc in support of its invasion. “Russia is trying to grow the war,” he said. “Russia is trying to involve more countries.”
Zagorodnyuk also said the prospect of an expanding war should be met by stronger Western support for Ukraine, as opposed to pressing Ukraine to make concessions to bring a quick end to the war. “My biggest fear is that the Western leaders will not get it still,” he said. “This conflict will grow unless Russia is losing it.”Meurmishvili spoke with Zaogorondyuk for the latest episode of The World Deciphered.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Meurmishvili: What do you make of [the North Korean troop deployment]?
Zagorodnyuk: We’ve been saying for three years that unless this war is lost by Russia, it will turn into [a] much bigger conflict, because other countries will be joining. Russia tries to show to the world that represents a certain coalition. And so [Russia] tried to use Belarusian soldiers, from almost day one of the war. And for a whole number of reasons that didn't happen, but certainly they tried their best. They immediately used help from Iran, in terms of drones and then ballistic missiles. And then they used to help from [North] Korea, and so on.
Of course, Russia has some resource problems, and manpower issues. That involves funding, because they obviously pay their [soldiers] quite a lot of money, by Russian standards. That's absolutely astonishing, because they're paid to die, essentially, with a huge casualty rate. They voluntarily go to die for money. But at the same time, we do know that Russia has economic problems.
Meurmishvili: South Korea also announced that it would send observers or monitors or advisors to monitor what North Koreans are doing in Ukraine. What does that part mean to you? So there will be North Koreans and South Koreans?
Zagorodnyuk: No, there will be just North Koreans. South Koreans are not sending any soldiers. We didn't ask. All they [South Koreans] are afraid of, which is absolutely legitimate, is North Korea gaining battlefield experience, because they will be losing most of these soldiers in the battle. But those who survive, and maybe their officers, they will understand something about the modern war. Because they don't have any combat experience, none of them. They will eventually pay a very dear price, but I guess that price may be affordable to North Korea. So no problem with that for them.
For South Korea, it's of course a dangerous situation because they will understand that their existential enemy is participating now in a war where they gain the experience of modern warfare, which is changing and evolving dramatically these days. And so they will know about that, more perhaps than South Korea.
Meurmishvili: How do you think NATO should respond to this? Do you think there will be any response from NATO?
Zagorodnyuk: I don't think there will be any response from NATO. That's of course frustrating, but I don't think they are going to do anything really. And I don't think we will see any change. And that's pretty upsetting by itself. Because again, we've been talking about this over and over again, unless Russia is clearly losing this war, the war will be involving more and more countries, and growing. This conflict will grow unless Russia is losing it. This axiom, that logic has applied since 2022. And we've been saying this over and over. Now we see that's happening.
Russia is trying to grow the war. Russia is trying to involve more countries. Russia is trying to create that axis, or at least nourish the axis, develop this axis of nations. So that will continue. Perhaps even more countries will join later. The only way to stop that would be to make Russia lose. How to make Russia lose? We all have been discussing this for a long time. Unless we do that, we will see [the war] growing. Unfortunately, right now, Ukrainians are taking the worst of it. And so, yes, we are a bit upset about it.
Meurmishvili: Do you anticipate increased and intensified financial and military support to Ukraine in light of North Korean troop presence here?
Zagorodnyuk: I don't think it should be in light of that. Again, we have a very clear strategic goal and that strategic goal is to make Russia lose. So, unless we do that, the situation is going to get worse, it's not going to get better.
And many people think that if they do a little bit, Russia will say, OK, fine, it's not working out and they will stop. That's a huge, monumental strategic mistake of historical proportions. Because if things are just not going well for Russia, they will not stop. They will try to involve more resources, more countries in order for that to work better for them. They will not stop and just say, OK, fine, things are not working out. People who think that they will do that, they don't understand Russia, they don't understand this war and they're making [a mistake of] historical proportions. Russia needs to start losing this war, absolutely clearly in order for that conflict to deescalate.
Meurmishvili: You've been predicting that the conflict would involve other countries from the Russian side. What's your biggest fear? How far can this go?
Zagorodnyuk: Frankly speaking, my biggest fear is that the Western leaders will still not get it. And in this case, they will still be trying to de-escalate, to pacify Russia, to give them some sort of favors and things will get worse. Things will get worse on many levels.
I'm not talking about nuclear weapons, which I don’t believe Russia is going to use in this war. I'm talking about involving more North Koreans, involving more Russians, destroying more Ukrainian cities, continue attacking [in a] hybrid way Western countries and creating that axis of nations.
Basically, Russia will show to the rest of the world, to countries which are still happy to listen to Russia and happy to smile and hug Putin whenever they meet, they will show to these leaders that the West is weak and the West cannot defend Ukraine despite policy statements and political declarations over these three years. And if the West is weak, the world order based on international law is going to be destroyed.
And then the other countries will be joining either through the BRICS [alliance] or through whatever other group of countries joins with Russia. And we will see this massive global conflict shaping up more and more and more. That's my biggest fear.
And frankly speaking, especially with the visit of the Secretary General of the United Nations, smiling to Putin, displaying the friendship and friendly attitude to him during that trip, I don't see us going in the right direction at all.
Meurmishvili: And of course there was the BRICS meeting in Kazan and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping met with President Putin, where they reconfirmed their great friendship with each other, and Putin said that this is the beginning of a more fair, more just world order.
What's the order that China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and other countries want?
Zagorodnyuk: Perhaps they still may not have a single platform at the moment, all these countries which you mentioned. Their platform is similar only in terms of their attitude to certain things, like to the West. It's tough to say because each of these countries are very different.
But it's clear what Russia means. Russia considers itself a victim in this situation. A victim of the West in the world's history, for the last 70 years or so. And they believe that the world order which was created post-World War II is unjust, because it requires them to behave according to standards. And Russia believes that they are above those standards because they are bigger than those standards and they can behave according to whatever standards they set themselves up.
Their understanding of justice is that big countries like Russia, they have more rights than others. They have better rights, they're better than others, and they can create their own world. That's what they think is just. And from that perspective, they're trying to impose those objectives and those visions to the other countries. They are trying to create a group of countries which would be jointly destroying their post-World War order.
I hope that the critical mass of these indicators will finally wake some people up, but we have to wait and see. We still see, in many countries, discussions about some kind of rationalization of what Russia is doing. And that's extremely dangerous, because it's showing to Russia that they can continue doing that. They're talking about the need for Ukraine to make some concessions, for instance, just thinking that those concessions are going to help. Obviously, they won't. They will actually make matters worse. So there's lots of people, including in the Western nations, including in the nations which are allies of Ukraine, they're still trying to rationalize and still trying to find a way how to pacify Russia and end the conflict. That's not going to work. That never worked with previous ones. It is not going to work with this one.
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