North Korean troops fighting Russia’s war in Ukraine are unlikely to be allowed to go home and could instead get ‘sent to the gulags,’ an expert has warned.
There are an estimated 10,000 North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine, according to US intelligence, but if the current trial proves successful, Kim Jong Un could send more.
But if those loaned-out troops are hoping to return home as heroes, they could be in for a rude surprise, an expert has warned. Russia expert and author Keir Giles explained to Mirror.com why they might not make it home.
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He said: “There’s a good reason why Russia has kept North Korean troops on its territory for now. They’ve had enough trouble with their own Russian soldiers going into Ukraine and realizing how much better life is just living it outside Russia. The individuals in North Korea are unlikely ever to be allowed to return home now they have experienced what life is like outside North Korea, even if it is in regions of Russia itself.
“It would be dangerous for the North Korean regime to allow them back to infect others with knowledge of what they have seen. We might instead see a return to the kind of purges that were carried out against the Red Army in 1945 when they returned from Europe. Large parts were encircled and sent to the gulags.”
On November 4, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers were in Russia’s Kursk region and were preparing to join Moscow’s fight against Ukraine in the coming days. If they engage in combat, it would be North Korea’s first participation in a large-scale conflict since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea ratified a major defense treaty with Russia focusing on mutual military aid, the North’s state media reported on Tuesday this week. It is considered both countries’ biggest defense deal since the end of the Cold War.
Mr Giles continues: “If any of them survive that is. With just 10,000 NK troops there, at the casualty rate on the Russian side, that’s about a week.
“This is a proof of concept. But if there is no response from the West to deter NK and Russia from doing this, then there’s no reason for them to stop doing it and we can expect this program to expand.”
The treaty between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un requires both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
It also calls for the two countries to actively cooperate in efforts to establish a “just and multipolar new world order” and strengthen cooperation on various sectors including peaceful atomic energy, space, food supply, trade and economy.