Opinion | Are North Korean troops really about to fight in Ukraine
By Tom Fowdy
Over the past few days, the internet has been gripped by a mass hysteria that North Korean soldiers are about to be deployed to fight in Ukraine. The first party to claim this was Kyiv, and this was then followed by South Korea. Once Seoul began saying so, a larger portion of the Western public began taking it seriously. However, it should be noted amidst these claims that so far not a single high-level government source in the West, NATO, or its news sources of record has actually verified this yet. Almost immediately, the most tedious Ukrainian propaganda sources have pushed claims of North Korean bases being hit or soldiers defecting, but this is typical of the nonsense that has come from Kyiv over the past three years.
While one should be careful not to rule out the possibility of this happening in the near future, as North Korea has indeed been offering military assistance to Russia, until it happens and verified reports, imagery, and evidence of DPRK participation in the conflict actually emerges, we should "hold our fire" because as of present, it is being overlooked that the two parties who have made such claims have an overwhelming tendency to brazenly lie about this subject for their own respective political interests. Here, I dive into this.
Ukraine: Seeking escalation for more support
Only the most deluded online pro-Ukraine fanatics are in denial that the war has effectively turned against Kyiv in the year 2024. Ukraine has lost ground and its population is also psychologically starting to buckle, as evidenced by growing social resistance to more mobilization and recruitment numbers shrinking. The New York Times verified the horrifying story of a music concert being ambushed by mobilization officers who dragged young men away kicking and screaming. The growing sense of unease in the country has led Ukraine's leadership to become less risk averse and more rhetorically desperate, such as Zelensky's "victory plan" which even the BBC of all outlets criticized as "increasingly at odds with reality" and then a purported ultimatum that Ukraine must be allowed to join NATO or it will obtain nuclear weapons. As a result, it should come to actually no surprise that Kyiv is actively seeking to escalate the war in order to draw in more Western support, and scaremongering about North Korean troops is one way to do so.
South Korean Conservatives lie about North Korea all the time
South Korea lies about North Korea, incessantly. This is a blunt comment, but it is true, especially so when Conservative presidents are in office. The South Korean press is essentially a never-ending fake news factory of hysterical, unverified, and often ludicrous stories about the DPRK which are lapped up uncritically by the tabloid press in the West. This of course is the hallmark of a country still officially at war, thus what is blatant war propaganda (as it is with Ukraine) is repeatedly parroted as an uncritical fact to Western audiences, which has shaped many misconceptions and caricatures about North Korea. For example, this has included claims every North Korean has to have "the same haircut," that "North Korea claimed it won the World Cup", and countless stories of North Korean officials and musicians being executed who were in fact not executed and of course the mill of defectors being made to lie and exaggerate their experiences for political purposes.
Likewise, South Korea's spy agency has even gone as far as bribing and abducting North Koreans to defect, which was the policy of the Park Geun-Hye presidency who infamously had 13 DPRK restaurant workers taken from Ningbo, China. The point? South Korean media and government are simply not trustworthy sources when it comes to issues pertaining to North Korea, especially as stated, Presidents such as Yoon Seok-Yeol are in office. It therefore plays to Seoul's narrative to back up Ukraine's claims accordingly. Hence, it should be again noted that no NATO intelligence source has actually verified this claim of North Korean troops yet being sent to fight in Ukraine.
But does that mean it is all made up? While we have established that both sources have a vested interest in dramatizing such a development, there is a reason to believe it to the extent of knowing Russia-North Korea military cooperation is real and increasing, and also that Moscow probably would seek to use North Koreans as cannon fodder than its own men. Likewise, the DPRK has a history of assisting allied states in conflicts from Vietnam to Syria, especially if it can profit from them. Thus, we should be open to the possibility they may also play another role, such as acting in an engineering capacity, supporting their lines or even guarding Russia's border to prevent more Ukraine incursions without actually entering the country itself. We have plenty of reasons to be skeptical, but also many reasons to wait and see.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | The end of the Ukraine War and the 'Korea Outcome'
Opinion | Israel, Lebanon and the historical cycle of miscalculation
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