Russia-Ukraine pulling troops from South and North Korea is unlikely to increase regional conflicts

Experts say the possibility of South Korean and North Korean militaries joining the Russia-Ukraine war is unlikely to cause a broader conflict between the two Koreas.

South Korea is said to be considering sending intelligence officers to Ukraine Yonhap News.

This comes after South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense told NBC News that North Korea had sent up to 12,000 troops to fight on Russia’s side.

Yonhap said South Korea could deploy soldiers from intelligence units, “who can analyze North Korea’s battlefield tactics or participate in the interrogation of captured North Koreans.”

United States on Wednesday confirm that North Korean troops were sent to Russia.

While South Korea has not publicly confirmed or denied plans to deploy personnel in Ukraine, This country has warned that they will send weapons, depending on the level of cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol said that this also marked a departure from Seoul’s long-standing policy of not providing weapons to countries in conflict. according to the report speak.

Experts told CNBC that South Korea is unlikely to allow the deployment of troops to fight in Ukraine.

“I don’t think the Yoon administration will approve the deployment of troops for actual combat operations on Ukrainian soil,” said Nah Liang Tuang, a researcher at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Nah said Seoul’s deployment of observers would not be a significant escalation because Kyiv’s partners already have non-combatant observers in Ukraine.

If Seoul were to deploy military personnel to help Ukraine with intelligence, technical training or even help interrogate North Korean prisoners of war, that would motivate Ukraine’s other allies to send in trainers or experts. Their military support came to support Ukraine.

“The messaging we are seeing may be aimed at discouraging the actual deployment of North Korean troops from Russia to Ukraine,” said Naoko Aoki, a political scientist at the American think tank. We don’t know yet how that will happen.” RAND.

Aoki said it was possible that personnel from the two South Korean countries would come into contact if both sides deployed them, which could “significantly complicate the situation”. However, she added that it will depend on how the North Korean military is deployed.

Nah said that such an event could only happen if North Korean troops penetrated Ukrainian defenses and encountered South Korean soldiers accompanying Ukrainian units. “In such a case, the South Korean military would open fire in self-defense, thereby limiting the nature of such encounters.”

Such an encounter would have little political effect, given Moscow and Pyongyang denied the North Korean military being recruited during the war.

Tensions on the peninsula have increased in recent weeks, with North Korea Blasting rail and road connections towards it, after sending junk bubbles entered Korea earlier this year. They also accused the South of sending drones carrying leaflets to Pyongyang.

While tensions are rising, experts say armed conflict will not occur. “North Korea would not want to wage a war on the Korean peninsula when some of its soldiers are in Ukraine fighting someone else’s war,” said RAND’s Aoki.

She emphasized that Pyongyang’s goal in supporting Russia is to try to strengthen relations with Moscow so that it can gain what it needs from Russia, such as information on advanced weapons technology and experience. fight.

“Pyongyang assesses that the blowback from Moscow’s support will not affect the Korean peninsula,” RSIS’s Nah said. “I think that Kim Jong-un sees his relationship with Vladimir Putin from a very transactional perspective, while being placed in a geostrategic area unrelated to the prospect of war on the peninsula. Korean Island.”