(Bloomberg) -- North Korea is likely to deploy troops to the battlefields in Ukraine, according to South Korea’s defense chief, as Pyongyang ramps up its support for Russia while taking further measures to distance itself from any form of rapprochement with Seoul.
The deployment is highly likely given that Russia and North Korea have signed a mutual treaty that is like a military alliance, Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun told lawmakers during a parliamentary audit session on Tuesday, according to Yonhap News. The report didn’t provide specific details of the possible size or timing of any deployment.
Separately, North Korea’s military threatened to destroy the few roads and rail links connecting it to South Korea, according to a Wednesday dispatch from the country’s official Korean Central News Agency. The links have already been shut for years due to political acrimony.
A deployment of troops in Ukraine would further ramp up Pyongyang’s cooperation with Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in June to provide immediate military assistance if one of them is attacked, signing a deal during Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years. Kim then called the pact “the most powerful treaty” signed between the two countries and one that elevates their ties to an alliance.
“Russia needs troops and other resources for the war while North Korea needs Russia’s support to rebuild its economy and to develop nuclear weapons,” said Kang Dongwan, a professor of political science at Dong-A University. “North Korea’s interests align with Russia’s.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report of possible North Korean troop deployment as “one more fake.”
The US, South Korea and Japan have already accused Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with munitions and ballistic missiles to aid its grinding war on Ukraine. Russia and North Korea have denied the arms transfers despite evidence showing them taking place.
The South Korean defense chief also said a recent report on North Korean casualties in a Russian-occupied territory near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk is likely to be true, according to Yonhap. Last week, the Kyiv Post reported that six North Korean officers were killed and three others were wounded in a Ukrainian missile strike on Oct. 3.
North Korea officials already at or near the frontline of fighting may be helping in the use of missiles Pyongyang has sent to Russia, given differences in equipment, rather than fighting on the ground.
“While there has been evidence of North Korean technical military personnel visiting warfields in Syria, there have been no credible reports of a general North Korean soldier presence in active war zones for many decades,” said Chad O’Carroll, CEO of Korea Risk Group.
“If North Korea sends high quality troops to participate in Russia’s war against Ukraine it could give North Korea the valuable battlefield experience that it has been unable to get for decades,” he added.
The move to cut off transportation links with South Korea comes as North Korea responds to the hard line taken by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. He has ramped-up cooperation with the US and Japan and talked of unifying the peninsula.
Yoon reiterated that theme Wednesday saying in a speech in Singapore that unification would “free 26 million North Korean people suffering from poverty and tyranny.”
North Korea’s Kim requested in January that all references to reunification with South Korea be removed from the constitution as he emphasized that South Korea was no longer a partner for reconciliation and characterized their relations as hostile.
North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament convened on Monday and Tuesday this week and amended its basic law, according to KCNA, but the report didn’t specify the changes made.
--With assistance from Alastair Gale, Greg Sullivan and Jon Herskovitz.
(Updates with analyst comments throughout and Kremlin comment in sixth paragraph.)
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