January 13, 2025: At the end of 2024 about 12,000 North Korean soldiers arrived in Russia and, after a short amount of additional training, were sent to fight along Russian troops in Ukraine. The North Koreans were first seen in combat during December. The Ukrainian forces facing them estimate that the North Koreans have suffered about 30 percent casualties so far because the Russians were using their Korean troops for frontal assaults. There were few Russian soldiers available for such costly attacks. Most remaining Russian troops were on the defensive. Ukraine had developed attack tactics that relied on self-propelled machine-guns and other close combat weapons as well as robotic vehicles to clear minefields. Russia may eventually copy this tech but for now they urgently need more soldiers and ammunition.

North Korea announced it will send as many soldiers to Ukraine as Russia requires. North Korea has worked with Russia in the past but never to the extent that North Korean soldiers were sent to fight for Russia in Ukraine while Russia finally agreed to upgrade North Korean strategic weapons systems

In June 2024, Russian and North Korea signed a Strategic Partnership treaty that obliged each nation to assist the other in wartime. In peacetime the two nations will supply mutual aid in military matters. North Korea wants assistance in perfecting and upgrading their nuclear weapons and launch platforms, including a modern SSBN or nuclear submarine carrying ready to launch missiles with nuclear warheads. Russian has such submarines but North Korea does not, and has been trying to develop them on its own.

When the North Korean munitions arrived in Ukraine and Russian troops began using the shells, they noted two things. First, that North Korean ammunition was unreliable and lacking accuracy. Worse North Korean shells could also be dangerous to use. Some of them detonated after leaving the gun barrel and eventually some detonated while inside the barrel. At this point the Russians had to stop using the North Korean shells, which had become more dangerous for their Russian users than the Ukrainians. Meanwhile, the North Korean munitions factories were working overtime to produce new shells to replace the older ones sold to the Russians. This was a good deal for North Korea because they unloaded their older artillery munitions and were now replacing it with newly manufactured shells, at least the ones not sold to Russia.

The need for the North Korean treaty is because Russian troops in Ukraine have suffered such high losses since early 2022 that the Russian army has run out of soldiers. Russia has lost over 700,000 killed or disabled fighting in Ukraine. Many of the wounded suffered further when they found that the Russian medical system was unable to adequately treat them. This led to many thousands of desertions and millions of military age men leaving the country.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin thought the Ukraine War would be over in days or weeks. It wasn’t and is now in its third year. Unlike World War II, the Russians invaded Ukraine and are losing. Russia’s ability to continue the war is clearly less than Ukraine’s provided NATO and US support continues. The Russian government pays families of dead soldiers tens of thousands of dollars. For families in rural areas, where most of the dead soldiers came from, this amount of cash is life changing. Soldiers who were badly wounded in Ukraine get lesser amounts but still enough to greatly improve their lives. Russia is spending 8 percent of the government budget on these payments and that has reduced the anger over dead or disabled soldiers to manageable levels. These billions, plus even more spent on continuing the war, have forced the government to go into debt. North Korea also compensates the families of North Korean soldiers killed in Ukraine, but not with cash. North Korean families receive economic assistance, new housing, or medical treatments most North Koreans cannot afford.