Russian Safety Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu has confirmed that the Korean Folks’s Army will dispatch 1000 mine clearance specialists and 5000 navy engineers to assist de-mining and reconstruction efforts within the Russian Kursk area, following the routing of the final Ukrainian forces there in April.The official described the brand new deployment as an extension of North Korea’s navy assist below its strategic partnership treaty with Russia, which obliged it to supply backing within the occasion of an assault on Russian territory. Mine specialists would “sweep the Russian territory,” whereas 5,000 navy engineers would assist “rebuild infrastructure destroyed by the occupants,” he said. Shoigu has made more and more frequent visits to North Korea, because the nation’s significance to Russian safety pursuits has continued to develop.
Commenting on the frequency of his visits, Shoigu said that there have been essential to oversee “the intensive tempo of the implementation” of the strategic partnership settlement. Sustaining momentum in strengthening defence ties between Moscow and Pyongyang “requires fixed consideration and course-correction on all ranges,” he added. Russia and North Korea’s defence ties had been restricted earlier than the outbreak of full scale Russian-Ukrainian hostilities in 2022, largely on account of Moscow’s continued efforts to strengthen ties with the USA and international locations within the European Union, which imposed appreciable strain to restrict ties with the socialist East Asians state.
North Korea has emerged as by far the best international arms provider to the Russian Armed Forces, with its tools prized not just for its superior capabilities, which in lots of instances surpass these of their Russian-produced counterparts, but in addition for the sheer portions obtainable. The Russian Army was by the tip of 2024 already estimated to have acquired as much as 9 million rounds of 122mm and 152mm artillery from the nation, with newer pictures having confirmed the adoption of 60mm and 140mm mortars to be used in frontline Russian Army items. North Korean ballistic missile programs have additionally performed a serious position within the nation’s navy operations since January 2024, with the KN-23B tactical system boasting a for much longer vary and better warhead weight than any system produced in Russia. Commander of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Directorate Lieutenant Normal Kyrylo Budanov earlier in June singled out the efficiency of North Korean 170mm self-propelled howitzers in fight, noting: “Sadly, this gun is demonstrating itself fairly nicely in battle. It’s firing from fairly a protracted vary, and it’s fairly good by way of accuracy.”
Elaborating on the position of 170mm weapons from North Korea, Budanov elaborated: “We’ve got information that the Russian Federation was offered 120 items. However I believe that offer will proceed as a result of these weapons are demonstrating themselves fairly nicely. That is unlucky for us as a result of that is artillery for long-range firing.” The weapons have a considerably longer attain than these beforehand in Russian service, or than the Western 155mm weapons offered to Ukraine by its strategic companions in NATO. Many Russian artillery items having come to rely nearly fully on North Korean equipped ammunition, with at the least six Russian artillery items presently sourcing between 50 and one hundred pc of their munitions from the East Asian nation. These arms provides have been supplemented by North Korean personnel deployments to assist Russian efforts to repel Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, which included not solely Ukrainian personnel, but in addition contractor personnel from a variety of NATO members together with Poland and the USA.
