Quantity over quality

What the Kremlin’s new defense pact with North Korea means for the Russian army fighting in Ukraine

On June 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a strategic partnership agreement. North Korea has long been supplying Moscow with weapons for its war in Ukraine, but the new pact could increase the flow of North Korean arms to the Russian military. And while the quality of these weapons might be questionable, the sheer quantity could more than compensate. Journalists from the independent outlet iStories spoke with North Korea experts to understand the implications of the new agreement for weapon supplies and whether it’s possible that North Korean soldiers could now be deployed to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine. Meduza shares a lightly abridged translation of their findings.

Reports that North Korea was supplying weapons to Russia first surfaced in September 2022 when declassified U.S. intelligence revealed that Moscow was buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from Pyongyang. Since then, American and South Korean intelligence agencies have regularly documented these weapon shipments. On June 14, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik reported that North Korea had sent at least 10,000 containers of munitions — capable of holding up to 4.8 million artillery shells. According to a report from The Washington Post, North Korea sends the shells by sea to Russian ports in the country’s Far East. From there, they’re shipped by rail to the front lines. Journalists have identified 16 destinations for these munitions, most of which are near the Ukrainian border.

According to NATO intelligence, Russia produces about 3 million shells per year, while the U.S. and E.U. countries can currently produce 1.2 million. Before North Korea developed nuclear weapons, artillery was its primary means of deterrence in a potential war with South Korea, explained Fyodor Tertitskiy, a senior research fellow at Kookmin University in Seoul. In terms of conventional weapons, that’s still the case. If a conflict were to break out, North Korean artillery units are tasked with targeting South Korea’s capital, Seoul, which lies close to the border and within artillery range. Consequently, the Korean People’s Army (KPA) has amassed a large stockpile of artillery munitions. Last September, Dutch researcher Siemon Wezeman estimated that North Korea had tens of millions of shells.

North Korea is also supplying 122-mm rockets for the Grad multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). (The KPA has an MLRS system based on the Grad, making the rockets compatible.) However, the most powerful weapon sent to Russia is likely the Hwasong-11 ballistic missile. This missile is similar to the Russian Iskander-M but has a longer reported range (700 kilometers versus 500 kilometers, or 435 miles versus 311 miles). According to the U.S. military, Russians began using these missiles late last year. Ukrainian officials reported that at least 50 Hwasong-11 missiles have been used in attacks, and their debris has been found in five regions of Ukraine, including Kyiv and Kharkiv. North Korea has also likely supplied Russia with anti-tank missiles, portable anti-aircraft missile systems, grenade launchers, mortars and accompanying ammunition, and small arms, the South Korean military said last November.

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Falling short

From time to time, pro-Kremlin channels on Telegram complain about the quality of North Korean artillery shells. They write that charges have varying amounts of gunpowder or are underfilled and that the gunpowder itself is of poor quality. This can affect accuracy so much that sometimes the shells hit Russian troops. “If the shell hits its target and explodes, the gun crew celebrates, and everyone dances and sings praises to Chairman Kim. If the shell falls short and lands on the heads of our infantry, then thank the half-starved Korean teenagers who assembled it for a bowl of rice,” wrote war blogger Alexey Larkin.

About half of the Hwasong-11 ballistic missiles launched at Ukraine explode in the air, according to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin. He stated that 24 people have been killed and 115 injured in strikes using North Korean missiles. (Kostin didn’t specify whether Ukrainian air defense systems have managed to shoot down any Hwasong-11 missiles.)

There could be several reasons for the poor quality of artillery ammunition, explained researcher Fyodor Tertitskiy. One is the lack of quality control at factories, partly due to high levels of corruption. Additionally, old shells may have deteriorated from long-term storage — a situation exacerbated by the fact that ammunition depots are underground to avoid detection by satellites, and the storage conditions there are subpar.

There’s also another important factor. “These supplies are sent abroad, and to a North Korean official, a foreigner is primarily seen as a sucker to be swindled,” said Tertitskiy. “They likely see Putin the same as any other foreigner, so if they can slip him something of poor quality without him making a fuss, they will.”

The Russian authorities are undoubtedly aware of the low quality of North Korean shells but continue buying them because ammunition is crucial in a war of attrition, noted Sue Mi Terry, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). If at some point Russia becomes dissatisfied with the weapons coming from North Korea, Moscow may refuse them and reconsider its commitments to supply military technologies to Pyongyang.

Prospects for broader military-industrial exchange

Since last year, Russian “war correspondents” and Z-channels have been writing that the Russian army would greatly benefit from North Korean KN-09 multiple-launch rocket systems, which have a reported range of up to 200 kilometers (124 miles). The KPA also possesses other systems capable of hitting targets up to 450 kilometers (280 miles) away. However, North Korea probably doesn't have many of these, so it’s unlikely it would send any to Russia in the near future, according to Forbes.

Despite sanctions, North Korea still manages to produce high-tech weapons. For instance, most of the electronic components in a ballistic missile that fell in Kharkiv were made in the U.S. and Europe, with one American chip manufactured as recently as March 2023. However, Pyongyang likely still isn’t able to mass-produce modern weapons.

This could theoretically change with the new strategic partnership agreement signed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. Russians might share technological components with North Korea, acquired by circumventing Western sanctions, said Tertitskiy. If there are enough components, North Korea could eventually start mass production. “A distinctive feature of their planned economy is that they can execute small projects very quickly,” Tertitskiy explained. “If they decide to launch a specific project, all resources will be diverted to it, and everything at the specific factory will work perfectly. It seems that Kim Jong Un is thrilled with the current developments, so they might allocate resources just for Putin.”

The North Korean military-industrial complex has already achieved significant success in producing ballistic missiles, especially short-range ones, says CFR’s Sue Mi Terry. North Korea has the capability to supply Russia with more ballistic missiles with various ranges, but whether it chooses to do so will depend on what Putin offers in return. “If Russia offers the technology to build, for example, submarines armed with ballistic missiles, Kim Jong Un might agree. But he won’t give away his missiles for money and food,” said Terry.

The Russian army might also benefit from T-54/55 and T-62 tanks that have been in the KPA since Soviet times. Currently, Russian troops use tanks like these as self-propelled artillery systems and for transporting troops during assaults, explained military analyst Kirill Mikhailov. In Russia, these old models are being taken out of storage, modernized, and sent to the front. However, Ukrainian researchers believe these stockpiles could be depleted by early 2026.

Boots on the ground

While North Korea has been sending weapons to Russia for a long time, North Korean soldiers haven’t yet been spotted in Ukraine. Article 4 of the new agreement states that if either country is attacked, the other will “immediately provide military and other assistance by all the means at its disposal.”

There are no threats of an attack on either country, but North Korea might claim that Russia's war against Ukraine is a defensive measure against aggression from Ukraine and NATO, said Sue Mi Terry from the CFR. In that case, there's a possibility Pyongyang could send its military to fight against Ukraine — and the longer the war goes on, the higher the chances of this happening. The North Korean authorities can send as many soldiers as they see fit without fearing domestic backlash. Protests against the government are impossible, and the number of people trying to escape from North Korea is unlikely to change; people already have plenty of reasons to flee.

Military personnel could be sent to the war disguised as workers, Terry explained. Since at least 2012, North Korea has been sending laborers to various countries. In Russia, for example, North Koreans built stadiums for the 2018 World Cup. North Korean workers may have already been to Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories; South Korean media outlets reported that Pyongyang had plans to send them, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who oversees government construction projects, mentioned that North Koreans could be part of “restoration” efforts in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk.

Fyodor Tertitskiy believes it’s unlikely that North Korea would send KPA soldiers to join the Russian army. The North Korean authorities have always avoided sending troops abroad, with only two known exceptions. During the Vietnam War, a limited number of North Korean pilots fought on the side of North Vietnam, and during Robert Mugabe’s rule in Zimbabwe, North Korean instructors trained his military. Pyongyang is reluctant to send a large military contingent abroad, fearing the return of armed soldiers who have seen the outside world.

Tertitskiy argues that the threat posed by soldiers and laborers who have been outside North Korea can’t be equated. Workers sent abroad are kept as isolated from the outside world as possible, which isn’t feasible for soldiers in combat. Moreover, a worker who has seen a different way of life is far less dangerous upon returning to North Korea than officers who command thousands of armed men.