North Korean troops in Kursk could backfire on Russia, Pyongyang

There is no longer much doubt that there are North Korean troops training in far eastern Russia.

Western intelligence services predict that some of these troops will soon be fighting in Kursk.

If they end up doing so, it could backfire badly on the Russians. It can also destabilize the Kim regime in Pyongyang.

It is important to keep in mind that Kursk is Russian territory. It was the Ukrainians who invaded Kursk. From what we understand, the Ukrainians are losing a lot of men and equipment and are systematically, if slowly, being pushed out of Kursk-area villages.

Three thousand or even ten thousand North Koreans are not likely to make any battlefield difference. A Russian combat brigade is about 8,000 foot soldiers, so a North Korean contribution would be about one brigade on the battlefield.

The North Koreans observed so far are foot soldiers. They do not appear to have armor (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers) or artillery. They also have only minimal training on Russian tactics, and most of them do not speak the Russian language.

If the North Koreans actually do fight on Russian territory they are not mercenaries, as some news reports suggest. The collective west has supplied some 13,000 mercenaries to Ukraine, and an unknown number of uniformed troops who work as advisors and as specialists operating air defenses and critical communications and command and control nodes.

Russia’s Duma has just ratified a defense agreement with North Korea that provides for mutual self-help in case either country is attacked. Ukraine’s incursion in Kursk amounts to a land invasion of Russian territory, and thus it would trigger the mutual defense agreement between the DPRK and Russia.

No one knows much