In early January 2024 information began to emerge that the White House said that during one of the latest missile attacks on Ukraine, Russia used at least several ballistic missiles obtained from North Korea to circumvent international restrictions.
North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, Kim Sonashcho, said that North Korea’s relations with the Russian Federation “are legitimate relations between independent sovereign states… based on respect for the principle of equality and the right to self-determination.” However, he denied the fact of supplying weapons.
We decided to look into this topic and discuss it with two experts on North Korean foreign policy. We managed to clarify how cooperation with Russia benefits this country, why it staged provocations on the border with its southern neighbor, and where the country is headed.
Do the missiles belong to North Korea?
Indeed, on January 4, 2024, the coordinator of strategic communications of the National Security Council of the White House, John Kirby, stated at a briefing that the United States has information that North Korea has transferred to Russia a certain batch of ballistic missiles and launchers for them, which have already been used for strikes across Ukraine on January 2, 2024.
The White House has already published evidence of military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, which the parties agreed on last year, and evidence of the transfer of artillery and other projectiles.
“We have information that North Korea has supplied Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine. The DPRK has provided Russia with more than 1 000 containers of military equipment and ammunition. Today we are publishing a picture depicting the movement of the containers,” – journalist Laura Rosen quoted Kirby back in October, 2023.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said that Ukraine cannot yet confirm the use of North Korean missiles; the investigation is ongoing.
“The statement was appropriate from the United States. Therefore, specialists will study certain fragments and then it will be possible to say whether such a fact exists or not. I can’t confirm this yet… I think that the weapons they have are taken from the DPRK, there is a lot of Soviet stuff, a lot of technology was transferred to the USSR. Maybe even identical. Therefore, it is hardly worth expecting something newer. From the same “Iskander”, it may differ somewhat, but not too much,” – he said.
Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said that the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is verifying information about North Korea’s supply of ballistic missiles to Russia and their use for attacks on Ukrainian cities.
“Defense cooperation took place and continues. It mainly concerned artillery stocks and ammunition and other elements related to artillery and armored vehicles. In terms of ballistics, these are desirable requests for Russia to North Korea and Iran. Yes, this information was there. Regarding the receipt and use of these funds, the information is being checked,” – said Yusov.
We asked an expert at the United Ukraine Analytical Center, political scientist Petro Oleschuk, why Ukraine was in no hurry to confirm the words of the White House and is conducting a thorough investigation. He answered:
“I think you just need to collect the relevant evidence. The other day, a meeting of the UN Security Council was held, and there the representative of North Korea stated that they are not delivering any missiles anywhere, these are all insinuations of the United States, nothing more. It is clear that they will continue all this [deny – ed.].
It is obvious that we will also need to be able to justify our position, including in the UN, no matter how meaningless it may seem now, given the importance of the UN as an effective force. We need to be ready for the fact that relevant questions will arise. The Attorney General’s Office claimed that they had sufficient evidence that these were indeed North Korean missiles. It is obvious that there is evidence, but GUR may well collect some additional materials in order to be able to substantiate it at the international level later. Although, I repeat, the UN is unlikely to bring us any benefit now, but it will still not be superfluous to use it as an argument for certain steps in the future”.
At the moment, only the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin has confirmed that Russia is already using missiles from North Korea in the war against Ukraine. He explained that in order to confirm the data on the origin of the weapons used to attack Ukraine, joint systematic work of prosecutors, investigators and experts is needed.
“Regarding North Korea, the other day we received the first evidence of the Russian army’s use of missiles manufactured in this country. The results of the preliminary scientific and technical examination confirm that the Kharkiv missile launched on January 2, 2024 over the central part is a short-range missile developed by North Korea,” – emphasized Kostin.
It is currently known that South Korea has once again called on Russia to stop any arms operations with North Korea, as they violate international sanctions previously supported by Moscow itself.
“Russia, which is a party to UN Security Council sanctions resolutions against North Korea, is contradicting itself by receiving North Korean weapons for use in the war against Ukraine. We once again strongly urge (Moscow – ed.) to immediately stop this,” – the diplomatic agency said.
Also, on January 10, 2024 the United States convened a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the supply of missiles to the Russian Federation from North Korea. It was on this day that the seven countries issued a joint statement.
The statement says that on December 30, 2023, January 2, 2024, and January 6, 2024, the Russian Federation carried out several devastating airstrikes against Ukraine, as a result of which dozens of people were killed and hundreds were injured. These horrific attacks were carried out, in particular, using ballistic missiles and launchers procured from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“The export of arms from the DPRK to Russia flagrantly violated numerous UN Security Council resolutions that prohibit UN member states from purchasing arms or related materiel from the DPRK and prohibit the DPRK from exporting arms or related materiel,” – the authors of the statement remind.
Russia and North Korea: what is the secret of cooperation?
Nataliya Butyrska, an expert on East Asian affairs, master of foreign policy, informed in her article that during a recent visit to South Korea, together with a group of colleagues from Ukrainian think-tanks, she participated in a series of meetings with Korean experts and parliamentarians dealing with North Korea.
“Most of them are inclined to think that the DPRK has large stockpiles of weapons, which can be transferred to the Russian Federation in exchange for foreign exchange earnings, food and basic necessities, as well as military technology… Another point of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the DPRK, according to the South Koreans partners, is the production of weapons for Russia on the basis of North Korean military factories”, – she explained.
Regarding the production of weapons on the basis of North Korean factories for Russia, Petro Oleschuk said that the eastern country is not afraid of the consequences of such cooperation.
“They will not be particularly concerned about this – they are quite isolated. Their key partner is China, which, obviously, will not impose any sanctions on them, and as long as they maintain relations with China, I think that they will not see any special obstacles for themselves. Their only limitation is relations with South Korea and the need to maintain this balance,” – he said.
We also asked the political scientist what benefits North Korea pursues in such cooperation with Russia. He said:
“The most pragmatic goal is to receive some benefits. And benefits are not necessarily money. It can be technologies, equipment. For example, they may be interested in Russian aviation or missile technologies and, ultimately, technologies related to the production of nuclear weapons. Here they will definitely get something from Russia. In addition, for them it is a breakthrough of the corresponding diplomatic isolation, because they have been under UN sanctions for about 20 years. By the way, they were implemented with the participation of Russia as a member of the UN Security Council. So now this member of the UN Security Council is reestablishing relations with them and, despite all these sanctions, trades with them, buys weapons, sells something. That is, for them, this is a corresponding change in status.”
He added that they might also be interested in testing their missiles in practice. This, by the way, is the position expressed at the UN by the representative of South Korea, who stated that North Korea is thus testing its own missiles, which can be used in the future, including for launching nuclear strikes – at least theoretically. That is, for them, it is a kind of test, also at the expense of Russia.
We asked him whether such cooperation with a member of the UN Security Council is not an attempt by the leaders of the DPRK to show their people that the country is increasing foreign policy ties.
“They are a fairly closed society and there are alternative sources of information, that is why there is such a fairly distorted picture of the outside world, where they are the main leaders in the world, everyone is jealous of them, and seeks to attack them. Other states, supposedly allies, are not very well depicted in their information. They don’t particularly mention Russia, they don’t even mention China much. I think it’s secondary to them.
Rather, we are talking about some personal considerations of the prestige of the North Korean leader. In fact, from the moment he became the country’s leader, he was in that isolation. And now he is, as it were, on the “same level” with the leader of the world’s largest state. Well, and, in addition, practical considerations. Now they are as dependent as possible on China, on financing and trade. I think they are very interested in having at least some alternative external contacts for themselves,” – said Oleschuk.
As for the benefit of Russia in this cooperation, he said that they are simply looking for any resources to replenish their means. That is, they are sufficiently extensive in the methods of waging war. Here they simply use the technique of mass shooting, for this they need a lot of shells. Obviously, they themselves can no longer fight the shortage of the required number of shells and therefore they need additional resources. They were found by the North Koreans.
“If North Korea is constantly preparing for the Great War, then they obviously have a lot of these shells. At the same time, various information is received that they are not of the best quality, because they are not the newest. That is, in fact, North Korea is vacating its warehouses and such old shells and producing new ones,” – he said.
North and South Korea: Should we be worried?
Recently, in addition to the news about the supply of weapons to Russia, new provocations by the DPRK on the common border with South Korea have also been discussed in the media space. In particular, North Korea fired more than 200 artillery shells into the sea near the sea border with South Korea on January 5, 2024.
Kim Yo Jong, sister and key ally of leader Kim Jong Un, later said North Korea would immediately launch a military strike in response to any provocation.
“I explain once again that the trigger safety of the Korean People’s Army [KPA, the military force of North Korea – ed.] has already been moved. As already stated, the KPA will launch an immediate military strike if the enemy resorts to even a minor provocation,” – Kim Yo Jong told the KCNA, state news agency of North Korea.
Leader Kim Jong-un has said that South Korea is the DPRK’s “main enemy” and that he has “no intention of avoiding war.”
“If South Korea dares to try to use armed forces against the DPRK or threaten its sovereignty and security, and such an opportunity arises, we will not hesitate to destroy South Korea by mobilizing all the means and forces at our disposal,” – Kim Jong-un said during the inspection main factories for the production of ammunition.
We asked Petro Oleschuk whether such statements and actions could really become a prerequisite for military escalation on the peninsula. He said it’s not that unique. Periodically, North Korea has been shelling the territory of South Korea with artillery since the end of the Korean War. It’s not really an indicator that there’s going to be some big war tomorrow, but the situation is escalating. Representatives of North Korea have already made quite a lot of such rather loud statements that they will figure it out, destroy South Korea and the like.
“In general, I have such an assumption, this is my personal opinion, that it may be part of a corresponding pact between North Korea and Russia. That is, Russia has such an approach that they support any escalation and destabilization in the world. She needs this to draw the world’s attention to all these conflicts as much as possible and, accordingly, to reduce support for Ukraine in this way. Here, they could also agree with the North Korean leadership, that: “You there, let’s shoot a little, threaten, you can even do a nuclear test, so that everyone understands how serious you are. For example, South Korea begins to accumulate all the resources to oppose you.” Because it is not a secret to anyone that, although South Korea officially did not transfer anything from weapons to Ukraine, due to the schemes of the corresponding relations with the United States, very large batches of shells manufactured in South Korea ended up in Ukraine and on the front. South Korean-made projectiles are one of the largest for Ukrainian 155-caliber artillery. This is a serious enough argument. That is, to be honest, I do not rule out that such a scenario exists,” – he said.
He concluded that he objectively does not see any possibility that tomorrow, for example, this war, which has been frozen for 70 years, will start tomorrow with a new force. Especially since it is unlikely that South Korea will be able to withstand all this.
The Korean War – was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United States and allied countries. The war ceased with an armistice on 27 July 1953.
We asked him what he thought about the military potential of the two countries, and he answered that South Korea is also a country with a colossal military potential, that is, one of the most powerful in the context of production. It is one of the states that has increased military production and exports since the beginning of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. Even Poland buys South Korean howitzers, tanks and the like. They recently started to produce their fighters.
“On the other hand, North Korea is a militarized, totalitarian state. They have been preparing for war for many decades. Therefore, he is actually such a serious enough player in this situation. But on the other hand, the fact that they are so actively selling weapons to Russia shows that they seriously do not believe that they will start a war in their own region in the near future,” – he said.
We decided to investigate the topic of North Korea’s foreign policy in more detail and spoke with Mykola Polishchuk, Chairman of the Ukraine-DPRK Society about it. We also asked him if he does not consider the current situation between the two states close to aggravation.
“Actually, she is not as tense as she seems. The situation was much more serious in 2002, in 2010, when North Korea actually fired on the Yŏnphyŏng Islet with human casualties and under unknown circumstances during maneuvers, the South Korean corvette “Chongnan” sank. Currently, North Korean shells did not even cross the demarcation line drawn by South Korea [the demarcation of maritime space, unlike the 38th parallel in 1953, was not carried out, due to which both countries have their own ideas of where “their” territory ends]. What is more surprising is that this time South Korea’s rhetoric almost reached the level of the North’s, and that it fired back, something it had tried to avoid during previous escalations. Perhaps it is somehow related to the elections in April, the campaign there is going nervously, there was an attempt on the leader of the opposition party,” – he said.
In his opinion, the best argument for the fact that we are facing a wave of fists with a complete reluctance of a real fight is the fact that both countries supply their weapons to Ukraine and Russia.
Regarding the high-profile statements of the leaders of the DPRK, he added that these are the usual North Korean rhetoric: threats filled with very strong pathos, behind which there is nothing. Rather, it’s a “just try to attack us” warning.
“After the Korean War of 1950-53, both parts of the peninsula considered themselves to be the only legitimate governments in the entire territory of Korea. All attempts to unite did not lead to anything due to the fact that the social and economic models are very different. The elite of North Korea is afraid of losing power, the elite of South Korea is afraid of destabilization. Therefore, articulating the desire to unify, Seoul and Pyongyang are trying to postpone this unification for as long as possible,” – added the Chairman of the Ukraine-DPRK Society.
Foreign policy of the DPRK
Considering the fact that North Korea is a closed state, you can’t write much about its foreign policy. For example, Mykola Polishchuk said that the main and almost the only ally of the country is China.
“In fact, economically, the DPRK is almost completely dependent on China. Previously, it played on the contradictions between the People’s Republic of China and the USSR, receiving help from both countries, which it threatened to switch to the enemy’s camp. Currently, they are completely dependent on China’s subsidies, but at the same time they can conduct a relatively independent policy, for example, Beijing does not like North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile launches. But China believes that it is better to have a buffer state between it and the Republic of Korea, because with the unification of the Koreans, American troops stationed in the South may find themselves right on the Chinese border. It is believed that in order to prevent this, it is possible to tolerate the policy of the North, which is not completely under the control of the North,” – he said.
Korea does not react strongly to the sanctions from the UN, which we have already mentioned. According to Mykola Polishchuk, even the US has stopped trying to “reach out” to the country. He said:
“They have very little influence, because the country is already used to living under sanctions, at the same time establishing shadow trade with China, and now also with Russia. The current US administration has practically removed itself from work in the North Korean direction. The previous one at least tried to exchange nuclear disarmament for the lifting of sanctions, which it never achieved. Obviously, in Pyongyang, they were more likely to repeat their balancing policy and play on the contradictions between the PRC and the USA, but here the Americans did not meet, because for them the basic condition was nuclear disarmament”.
Of course, we couldn’t help but ask whether there are any political ties between Ukraine and the DPRK. It turned out. That a certain cooperation really existed:
“In the 1990s and 2000s, we bought refractory materials for the metallurgical industry from them, and sold them Antonov airplanes. Now all contacts are stopped, including at the diplomatic level. When there was a famine in Korea, we helped them with food, and allocated three million dollars worth of food in 1995–1996 years, although we ourselves were not very good with it,” – said the expert.
The North Korean famine – was a period of mass starvation together with a general economic crisis from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea. During this time there was an increase in defection from North Korea which peaked towards the end of the famine period. The famine stemmed from a variety of factors. Economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support caused food production and imports to decline rapidly.
As a summary of this article, we asked both of our experts how they see the future of North Korea. Opinions converged.
“I think that the regime will remain stable, it generally shows a very high potential for survival. I see the biggest benefit for him from exporting labor to Russia, it will clearly improve the well-being of thousands of Pyongyang residents,” – said Mykola Polishchuk.
“Regarding the political direction, it is difficult to say, because we have very little information – it is a closed and totalitarian society. In general, they were almost completely closed for several years during the Covid epidemic, because then they completely closed the borders and there was even less information about them. Now it is starting to come little by little, but still not much. But they will probably continue the line they have been following – a closed society, sufficiently local relations with the outside world, constant threats to neighbors, accumulation of military potential,” – said Petro Oleschuk.
Therefore, the situation with the supply of weapons to Russia is quite clear, although there are still ongoing negotiations. Such cooperation is beneficial for both sides – Russia receives additional missiles, North Korea receives technology and money. North Korea’s political provocations are more like Russia’s sidekick with the goal of diverting attention from Ukraine than a real threat in the region. There is no doubt that the country remains true to its political course and in this situation pursues profit rather than an idea.
Tetiana Stelmakh
