Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed a South Korean claim last week that North Korean troops had been sent to the special operation zone to fight Ukraine, yet Zelensky still ran with the report over the weekend, after which it was maximally amplified by Mainstream Media outlets like CNN. Some prominent Alt-Media accounts also lent credence to this story too. Ukrainian media then shortly thereafter alleged that 18 of these North Korean troops went AWOL near the international border.
These reports coincide with three developments: 1) Germany, which is Ukraine’s second-largest donor, just became the latest country after Poland to max out its military support; 2) Russia is preparing to ratify summer’s updated strategic partnership agreement with North Korea that reaffirms their mutual defense commitments; 3) and North Korean-South Korean tensions have once again begun to worsen. The relevance of each development to these latest reports will now be explained.
Regarding the first, Russia’s lead in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” will only further grow unless Western countries dig into their remaining stockpiles that they’ve preserved for meeting their minimum national security needs in order to desperately narrow the gap. The latest news might therefore have been concocted to pressure them into doing so on the false pretext that North Korea is directly intervening in the conflict so it’s now more about “democracies vs. dictatorships” than ever before.
As for the second, Russia’s impending ratification of its updated deal with North Korea lends a veneer of believability to these reports by making observers think that it might have already secretly entered into force before this legal formality was completed. Ukraine’s continued occupation of parts of Russia’s Kursk Region could have imbued the mutual defense aspect of their pact with a heightened sense of urgency in their minds, thus explaining why some Alt-Media accounts also fell for what seems to be a lie.
And finally, South Korea provoked the latest tensions with North Korea by flying propaganda drones over Pyongyang several times between 3-11 October, which could have been done in hindsight to add another layer of intrigue to the subsequent reports about North Korean troops fighting Ukraine. This artificially manufactured context might accordingly make some imagine that Russia and North Korea are “jointly challenging the rules-based order”, which could thus facilitate the preceding two goals.
With these three points in mind, it compellingly appears as though the latest reports are fake news. If it turns out that there’s any truth to them, however, then the purpose behind this deployment would be to bolster Russia’s military logistics, replenish some of its lost forces, help cover holes in the border, and/or prepare for a breakthrough if the opportunity presents itself such as if Pokrovsk is captured. The truth will ultimately reveal itself, but for now, it’s best for Alt-Media to be skeptical.
