North Korea, Longing for Battle Experience, Eyes Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is providing North Korea’s military with something it has long hoped for: opportunities to test its new weapons and its officers’ preparedness for modern warfare, analysts and officials in South Korea said on Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have said that in addition to providing large shipments of artillery shells and ballistic missiles for Russia, North Korea has been sending military engineers and soldiers to fight alongside Russian troops. Last week, Kim Yong-hyun, South Korea’s defense minister, called it “highly likely” that several North Korean soldiers had already been killed in the fighting, and that North Korea would send more troops to help Russia.

Moscow helped North Korea fight the Korean War seven decades ago by supplying weapons and pilots. Now, the North’s aid to Russia in a distant war is turning history back on itself. It is also, analysts said, strengthening its military preparedness on the Korean Peninsula at a time of growing tensions with South Korea​.

Since the Korean War, North Korea has not fought another major conflict. But it has sought opportunities to sell weapons and other military assistance to friendly countries. It sent pilots to aid North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Its pilots also flew for Egypt in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. North Korea also sent missile technicians and, according to Tass, the Russian state news agency, two small units of combat troops to fight for the Assad regime during Syria’s civil war in 2016.

“It has been a pattern: When North Korea has sold weapons to countries at war, they sent personnel not only to help those countries use the weapons, but often also to fight there themselves,” said Yang Uk, a military expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “They don’t seem to like missing opportunities to fight in a war and gain experience.”

If North Korea sent ground troops to Ukraine, it would be “their first major war in decades, an opportunity where their officers could get a sample of how modern war is fought, including the use of drones,” Mr. Yang added. “They will study how the knowledge they gain there can be translated into the Korean theater.”

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