North Korea shocked the world by sending more than 10,000 troops to Russia for its war against Ukraine — Pyongyang’s first deployment of troops for large-scale combat since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
But while that number of troops may look impressive on paper, two leading experts on the Ukraine war say the real issue of concern should not be the deployment, but rather how deepened North Korean-Russian cooperation could revitalize and ultimately help modernize Pyongyang’s now-moribund defense industrial base.
The North Korean troop dispatch comes as Russian forces absorb huge numbers of injured and killed in the war. Britain’s Defence Ministry said that Russia suffered 45,680 casualties in November — an average of 1,523 dead or wounded daily — a new high since its full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
