28.10.24 Review

Will Russia Benefit From The Korean Deal: Oil in exchange for corpses, strategic threats and the South's asymmetric response?


The deployment of several thousand North Korean soldiers to Russia effectively signals North Korea’s entry into the war, echoing the ‘international assistance’ of the Cold War era.

In a conservative scenario, Moscow would pay for North Korean ammunition and manpower primarily by providing economic assistance to Pyongyang. Large-scale shipments of food and Russian oil could lead to a rapid improvement in North Korea’s economic situation, which is crucial for Kim Jong-un.

A more concerning scenario for global stability involves strategic cooperation between Russia and North Korea in the nuclear and missile domains. Even limited technological assistance from Russia could significantly enhance North Korea's nuclear capabilities, strengthening its military and political stance considerably. North Korea’s transformation into a fully-fledged nuclear power would profoundly alter the regional balance of power. Although this scenario poses risks for China and even for Russia, it is not entirely out of the question.

At the same time, such extensive involvement by North Korea in the Ukraine conflict could prompt increased indirect military support for Ukraine from South Korea, one of the world’s top ten arms exporters. If South Korea joins the alliance supporting Ukraine with weapons, it could improve the flow of military supplies to Kyiv from Western countries, who are themselves facing equipment shortages. Under this scenario, the ‘Korean deal’ could ultimately result in Ukraine receiving at least as much support as Russia currently receives from North Korea.

Inertia scenario: oil for corpses

The decision to send several thousand North Korean soldiers to the Russia-Ukraine front effectively means North Korea is entering the war on Russia’s side, marking a significant escalation in the conflict in terms of international relations. The situation echoes the Cold War era – though back then, it was the Soviet Union that provided ‘international assistance’ through ‘limited contingents’ to its allies.

In the war of attrition that Putin is waging in Ukraine, it is assumed that Russia’s advantages in arms and manpower would make victory inevitable. To advance, Russia needs to maintain a clear advantage in the capacity to expend ammunition and personnel. However, Russia is, in fact, short on both. According to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, since August 2023, Pyongyang had sent Moscow more than 13,000 containers of ammunition, missiles, and other weaponry. Now, manpower is also in question. South Korean military intelligence believes that highly trained North Korean special forces have been transferred to Russia, likely destined for the Kursk region, in line with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty signed by Russia and North Korea in June, stating that each party may assist the other in repelling armed aggression on its territory. This would allow Moscow to prevent breakthroughs by Ukrainian forces and focus its resources on the main Russian offensives, which have shown limited success so far. Meanwhile, in Pyongyang, preparations are underway for the potential loss of elite forces, as South Korean intelligence reports that the families of soldiers sent to Russia have been isolated by the authorities.

What does the North Korean regime gain in return for this assistance? Significant dividends in the economic, political, and military arenas, according to Rachel Lee, a senior fellow in the Korea Programme at the Stimson Center. In exchange for weapons and soldiers, Russia is providing North Korea with food (including thousands of tonnes of corn and wheat) and oil. As Reuters reported, Russian oil shipments to North Korea had already surpassed the UN Security Council's annual limit of 500,000 barrels by May. Rüdiger Frank, an East Asia specialist at the University of Vienna notes that North Korea depended on Soviet oil imports for decades until the 1990s. Restoring oil imports to pre-sanction levels alone would lead to an economic boom for North Korea, he suggests. Additionally, Pyongyang has a pressing need for hard currency, and Russia could support this by leveraging its export potential, according to Robert Peters, an expert at the Ellison Centre for National Security.

Sending North Korean troops to Ukraine also provides North Korea’s leadership with an opportunity to gain experience with modern warfare technologies, Lee believes. While the North Korean army includes approximately 1.2 million soldiers, it has not engaged in a major military conflict since the Korean War of 1950–1953. Russia may also help North Korea modernise its defence industry: since August 2023, Kim Jong-un has frequently visited ammunition factories and other defence facilities, which could indicate the launch of armament renovation programs in Pyongyang. Politically, an alliance with Moscow boosts North Korea’s diplomatic leverage as part of an anti-Western front, and in the future, Peters suggests, Russia and North Korea might sign a mutual defence treaty that would form the basis of a genuine military alliance, potentially including joint military exercises on Korean territory.

Strategic threats

The main concerns of South Korea and the United States regarding this alliance are tied to the potential involvement of Russia in the development of North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. According to Peters, North Korea’s primary strategic need at this stage is the creation of manoeuvrable cruise missiles capable of overcoming the missile defence systems of the US and South Korea. In 2023, North Korea tested the land-based Hwasal-2 cruise missiles, which can carry tactical nuclear warheads. Russia could help North Korea enhance the Hwasal missile family by increasing their range, speed, accuracy, and manoeuvrability – technology that could be sourced from the Russian Kalibr missile, widely used in the Russia-Ukraine war. Alternatively, Moscow could transfer to Pyongyang technologies for the ground-based Novator 9M729 cruise missiles. These developments would enable North Korea to organise combined attacks using different types of missiles, complicating the operations of US and South Korean missile defence systems deployed in the region.

A second critical military need for Pyongyang is the miniaturisation of nuclear warheads, allowing them to be mounted on ballistic or cruise missiles, Peters writes. Despite numerous tests in recent years, there is still no reliable evidence that North Korea can solve the technical challenge of miniaturising nuclear warheads. Russia possesses such technologies and has invested significantly in the production of miniature warheads in recent years. Peters believes that transferring these technologies to Pyongyang would enable it to threaten nuclear strikes against any targets, forcing the US and South Korea to shift their policy toward North Korea from deterrence through prohibition (via missile defence) to deterrence through punishment (using offensive weapons capable of inflicting widespread destruction in North Korea).

North Korea may also seek Russia's assistance in developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). In 2017, Pyongyang demonstrated that its ICBMs Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 could reach the continental United States. In 2020, it showcased the Hwasong-17 missile, capable of carrying up to four nuclear warheads, and in 2023, it introduced the solid-fuel Hwasong-18 ballistic missile, which can carry multiple independently targetable warheads. US intelligence is also concerned that, in exchange for support, Putin may provide Kim Jong-un with technologies for constructing nuclear submarines and deploying ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads on them.

Siegfried Hecker, author of a book on North Korea's nuclear programme, estimates that Pyongyang can currently produce only about 6 kg of plutonium per year – sufficient for one nuclear warhead. North Korea’s uranium enrichment capacity is estimated at about 150 kg per year (enough for approximately six bombs), but plutonium is far more suitable for miniature warheads that can be mounted on ICBMs. Theoretically, Russia could assist North Korea in operating an experimental light-water reactor in Yongbyon and supply nuclear fuel that could be used to produce plutonium. It is also possible that Russia could supply plutonium directly to North Korea, the expert suggests, as Moscow has previously stated it has a surplus of 35,000 tons of plutonium. Additionally, Russia has vast reserves of tritium, which is necessary for hydrogen bombs – North Korea claims to have tested a thermonuclear device in September 2017.

Hecker reminds us that Moscow has been assisting Pyongyang with missile technologies since Soviet times: the first North Korean short- and medium-range Scud and Nodong missiles were copies of Soviet designs. Robert Peters emphasises that the pace of recent missile tests in North Korea indicates rapid technological progress and ‘suggests that North Korea may have already received technical assistance from Russia’.

However, in reality, such a development – strengthening North Korea as a nuclear power – is of concern not only to South Korea and the United States but also to China, and in the long term, to Russia itself. Nevertheless, the Putin regime has repeatedly demonstrated complete indifference to strategic damage in pursuit of tactical success. And no one can vouch for the rationality of Moscow's actions at this point.

Will Russia benefit from the ‘Korean deal’?

However, the tactical gains for Moscow from the Korean deal are not all that simple either. The deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia, according to the South Korean presidential office, represents a ‘serious security threat…to the international community’. President Yoon Suk-yeol stated that in response, Seoul could begin providing direct military assistance to Ukraine. If such a scenario is even partially realised, Russia is likely to lose or gain nothing from its ‘Korean deal’.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,South Korea is among the top ten largest arms exporters in the world, with an increasing number of NATO countries as clients in recent years. In 2022, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, South Korea and Poland signed a framework agreement worth about $22 billion for the supply of military equipment, including K2 tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers, FA-50 light attack aircraft, and K239 Chunmoo multiple launch rocket systems. Today, the volumes of military aid to Ukraine from the Western coalition are influenced, in part, by the fact that Europe lacks sufficient production capacity, and the corresponding capabilities of the US are also limited. South Korea's entry into the arms alliance supporting Ukraine could significantly improve the overall situation.

So far, South Korea has been focused on humanitarian aid to Ukraine: in September 2023, Seoul pledged $2.3 billion for the country’s reconstruction and humanitarian projects. Direct military shipments from South Korea to Ukraine are currently impossible, as Korean legislation prohibits sending weapons to active combat zones. However, these restrictions do not prevent Seoul from providing indirect assistance to Kyiv. In 2023, South Korea supplied the US with 300,000 155mm artillery shells to compensate for similar American supplies to Ukraine, as noted by experts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Mark Cancian and Chris Park.

It is unlikely that South Korea can significantly expand supplies of such ammunition: the country produces about 200,000 155mm shells per year – enough for the Ukrainian Armed Forces for just a month of intense fighting. Instead, Seoul could provide a third country with 105mm shells (approximately 3.4 million units are stockpiled), substituting those in its arsenal with supplies to Ukraine. Currently, less than a third of Korean howitzers use this calibre, as the South Korean army is actively transitioning to 155mm. The Ukrainian Armed Forces currently operate at least a hundred 105 mm artillery guns, which the allies supplied to Kyiv due to the shortage of 155mm shells. Although these howitzers have shorter range and inflict less damage, they are much more manoeuvrable and would allow the Ukrainian army to conduct rapid attacks in difficult terrain and quickly relocate to other positions, Cancian and Park emphasise.

However, for this, South Korea may need permissions from the US and Germany – components produced by them are used in both the K9 howitzer and the K239 MLRS, which experts estimate matches the capabilities of the American HIMARS system. South Korea also manufactures several types of cruise and ballistic missiles, but their use would require Seoul's consent to strike targets inside Russia. Considering all these factors, former US State Department official Vann Van Diepen believes that the most likely scenario for South Korean assistance to Ukraine is precisely ‘substitute’ ammunition supplies. In any case, an expansion of South Korean supplies could effectively counterbalance the impact of North Korean shells and soldiers.

To prevent this, Moscow will likely resort to blackmailing the US and South Korea with deepened cooperation with North Korea in nuclear and missile domains. However, even limited Russian assistance in their development threatens to make Pyongyang’s behaviour on the international stage much more aggressive, warns Robert Peters. Armed with ICBMs equipped with nuclear warheads, Pyongyang may conclude that it can provoke and act aggressively with impunity, as Washington and Seoul would refrain from retaliatory actions for fear of provoking a nuclear strike. In essence, Pyongyang could adopt Putin's tactics in Ukraine – military provocations under a nuclear shield. Therefore, the expert believes that Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo must significantly intensify trilateral cooperation, including closer integration of military command and control, work on operational compatibility of armed forces, and integration of missile defence systems.