Over 1,000 days of war in Ukraine and security challenges mount

“North Korean forces injected into the battle and now quite literally in combat demand and will get a firm response,” warned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a visit to Brussels a few days ago as he appeared for a press briefing with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Blinken stressed efforts to ensure money, munitions, and mobilized forces in order to assist the Ukrainian forces effectively in their fight against Russia while making it possible for Kyiv to negotiate peace from a “position of strength” as Trump’s return to the White House next year with his “America First” foreign policy raises doubts about Washington’s future commitments to Ukraine’s defence.

US officials estimate nearly 11,000 North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia’s Kursk region —  upgrading from the earlier disclosed 10,000 and 3,000 figures by the Pentagon and the White House — stating that their presence and active engagement against Ukrainian soldiers would make them “legitimate military targets”. South Korea, which has strained ties with Pyongyang and is politically inclined towards the West, also confirmed North Korean troops’ arrival, claiming that the soldiers were learning Russian commands and were likely to be sent to the front lines to participate in the war.

The North Korean troop deployment in Russia is being seen as a dramatic turn in the war, involving the merger of different geopolitical theatres with security consequences reverberating as far as the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East given the current camaraderie between Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran. South Korea and Japan, perceiving threats to their own security with North Korea armed to the teeth, have slammed the growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, siding with the US to address the present security concerns in their region. President Zelensky also raised alarm about a wider destabilization in a recent meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya in Kyiv due to Russia training the North Koreans with modern warfare and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un subsequently calling on “limitless” expansion of the country’s nuclear program to counter “US-led threats”.

The NK troops development prompted the Biden administration, set to leave office in 2025, to ease restrictions and authorize Ukraine to use long-range ATACMS missiles inside Russian territory — after which President Zelensky famously contended “the missiles will speak for themselves”. The Russian Defense Ministry, as reported by the state news agency TASS,  claimed the use of these missiles by the Ukrainian forces inside Bryansk Oblast on November 19. The attack coincided with the completion of 1,000 days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.

The Russian military has reportedly assembled a force of 50,000 soldiers, inclusive of the North Korean troops, in preparation for an offensive to regain the territory which was seized in the Kursk region by the Ukrainian forces in a surprise cross-border incursion in August this year. In a significant attack since the war started, Ukrainian soldiers advanced some 30 kilometers, sending shock waves in Moscow and prompting counter-offensive measures. 

According to a recent US assessment, Moscow has been attacking the Ukrainian positions in Kursk with strikes in order to recapture territory and is now able to press on several fronts together after gathering a force involving North Koreans, without having to evacuate troops from Ukraine’s east, which is its vital battlefield objective. With Ukraine not surrendering, Russia seems hellbent on taking Kursk back before any kind of negotiations amid reports of Trump brokering a “peace plan” for Ukraine.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has emerged as a geopolitical flashpoint that has divided the world into multipolarity and Cold-War-reminiscent blocs — predominantly the collective West, the West-sceptics rallying behind Moscow and the non-aligned states. Russia has tried to bypass isolation by the West through looking towards the East and solidifying the BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies, with China as more of a “counterbalance” to western hegemony in the global arena. The three-day BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October saw new members such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran participate for the first time as the bloc eyes more influence.

Where Iran has been bolstering Russia’s military capabilities through drone technological support and missiles already, the interconnectedness of key regional and authoritarian states and now North Korean forces’ active involvement makes it all the more evident that what is happening in Ukraine is having a global impact. The North Korean soldiers present an extra threat to Ukraine and, as NATO chief Rutte said, “will increase the potential for Putin to do harm” while posing security challenges beyond Europe’s borders. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already threatened that Russia “has the right” to hit states whose weapons Ukraine uses to carry out strikes in Russia, even though reports of Moscow bringing North Korean forces into combat came to light first. While the conflict continues to rage in the Middle East amid ceasefire talks on one end, the war in Ukraine is also at a critical juncture and raises alarms about it spreading with more countries joining and thereby endangering more lives.