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President Joe Biden, South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba participate in a trilateral meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, on Nov. 15, 2024.
Japan, US, South Korea unite against North Korea-Russia Pact
The next day, Japan’s foreign minister, Takeshi Iwaya, met his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, in Kyiv, to reaffirm Tokyo’s support for Ukraine and discuss further sanctions against Russia. Sybiha accused Pyongyang of feeding Moscow’s war machine in exchange for access to Russian military program, including missiles and nuclear weapons. Then on Sunday, Japan announced it will begin holding regular joint exercises with US troops in Australia starting in 2025, as those three countries strengthen their security ties amid growing threats from China.
Footage circulated online on Oct 18, 2024 shows North Korean troops training in Russia.
North Korean troops expected to engage Ukrainians within days as allies flounder
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says North Korean soldiers are expected to deploy in combat against Ukrainians in the coming days, while American Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood said 8,000 of Pyongyang’s soldiers are in the Kursk region, which Ukraine has partially occupied.
Blinken spoke after meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Cho Tae-yeol, and Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as Washington and Seoul attempt to coordinate a response to Pyongyang’s provocations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed deep disappointment in the thus-far anemic response from allies in an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, saying Moscow and Pyongyang would press the envelope further. “If there is nothing — and I think that the reaction to this is nothing, it has been zero — then the number of North Korean troops on our border will be increased,” he said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had expressed hope of sending weapons and advisers directly to Ukraine, but he’s hemmed in by constitutional restrictions and political realities he can’t overcome, as GZERO previously reported.
“South Korea and the West are grasping at straws to generate a significant response because there is widespread alarm and recognition that we have entered uncharted waters,” said Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan. “But North Korea will continue to get away with this because there aren’t a whole lot of good options.”
With the US election just days away, and the opposition that controls the legislature in Seoul deeply opposed to taking steps that could anger North Korea, we’re watching for more troops, more missiles, and deepening Pyongyang-Moscow ties before anyone in Seoul, Washington, or Beijing pushes back hard.
South Korean military soldiers parade during the 75th South Korea Armed Forces Day ceremony at Sejong-daero in Seoul, South Korea, September 26, 2023.
Recriminations fly in Seoul over a potential Ukraine military mission
South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party threatened to impeach the government’s defense minister if the ruling People Power Party went ahead with proposed plans to dispatch military monitors to Ukraine. President Yoon Suk Yeol would like military and intelligence officers to study North Korean battlefield tactics – Pyongyang has up to 10,000 soldiers in western Russia – as they engage Ukrainian troops, but the DP says such a deployment would violate South Korea’s constitution.
Yoon has to tread carefully: He doesn’t control the unicameral legislature, and Article 60 of the constitution clearly requires legislative approval for overseas troop deployments. Calling the troops monitors or observers won’t be enough to satisfy the opposition, and risking an impeachment of his cabinet officials is a bridge too far for Yoon, says Eurasia Group expert Jeremy Chan.
“Yoon is speaking loudly and carrying a toothpick,” Chan says, explaining that North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin already saw this play from Yoon in June, when they met in Pyongyang. When South Korea threatened to start arming Ukraine directly but then did nothing, “they realized in Pyongyang and Moscow that this guy’s a paper tiger.”
Will there be consequences for Kim? It’s not looking likely. With South Korea divided domestically on a response, and the US unwilling to, for example, remove limits on Ukraine striking deep into Russia, both Pyongyang and Moscow seem to be able to act with some impunity. On Thursday, Kim sent another reminder of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula: North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that stayed in flight for 86 minutes, a record for the Hermit Kingdom, off its east coast, according to South Korea and Japan.
We’re watching how far Kim can press his luck.
Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom party, part of the hard-right coalition government.
Hard Numbers: The Netherlands nixes asylum-seekers, Sudan strife escalates, South Koreans agitate, Beijing condemns US-Taiwan arms deal, Bulgarians vote – again
51,000: The Dutch nationalist government on Friday approved tough new migration measures in Parliament, including enhanced border checks, an end to mandatory municipal settlement of asylum-seekers, and limits on family reunification. The policy comes after 51,000 asylum applications were made in the past 12 months and reflects shifts in Italy, Sweden, and other EU nations towards tighter migration controls.
124: An attack by the Rapid Support Forces on Friday killed at least 124 people in Al-Sareeha village in Sudan, with reports of over 200 injured and 150 detained. The attack marked the latest escalation in the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces, which has displaced millions and triggered a severe humanitarian crisis.
230,000: South Korean Christians held a mass protest in Seoul on Sunday to oppose a court ruling granting same-sex partners spousal health benefits, fearing it paves the way for legalizing same-sex marriage. The protest disrupted traffic as organizers claimed over a million participants, while police estimated the crowd at 230,000.
2 billion: China on Saturday condemned a $2 billion US arms sale to Taiwan, the 17th of the Biden administration to the island, vowing “countermeasures” to defend its sovereignty. Beijing warns that the deal, which includes advanced air defense systems, “seriously damages China-US relations, and endangers peace and stability” in the strait.
7: Exit polls show Boyko Borisov's GERB party leading Bulgaria’s seventh election in three years, but forming a coalition could be difficult: The last election in June produced a hung Parliament. This time, the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party underperformed, while the Reformist PP-DB exceeded expectations. Final results are expected on Monday.Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un attend a farewell ceremony before Putin's departure at an airport in Pyongyang, North Korea June 19, 2024.
North Korean troops move into Russia’s border area with Ukraine
Soldiers sent by Pyongyang have moved into Russia’s Kursk region, an area along the Russia-Ukraine border where Ukrainian forces staged a surprise incursion in August, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
Kyiv says that roughly 12,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, a far greater number than reported by the US, though it remains unclear precisely how many have entered what Ukraine referred to as the “combat zone.” Ukraine, its Western allies, and South Korea have all expressed concerns that North Korean troops will begin fighting alongside Russian forces.
As Pyongyang and Moscow bolster ties, Seoul is worried Russia could reward North Korea – which has supplied ballistic missiles and ammunition rounds to Russia for its war in Ukraine – with advanced weapons and technology that could threaten South Korea’s national security. In response, the South Korean government has warned that it could provide Kyiv with arms.
Though Russia pushed back on previous reports of North Korean troops within its borders, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday didn’t deny their presence.
We’ll be watching to see if North Korean troops engage Ukrainian forces in the days ahead.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un attend a state reception in Pyongyang, North Korea June 19, 2024.
How will South Korea respond to North Korean troops in Russia?
The US on Wednesday confirmed that North Korea has troops in Russia. Though the nature of their mission is unclear, this marks a significant escalation that could see the Korean peninsula get involved in the war in Ukraine.
This comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned recently that North Korean troops could soon join Russian forces in the war against Ukraine. Seoul says roughly 3,000 North Korean troops are already in Russia with several thousand more promised to arrive.
Still, experts believe North Korean troops will have a limited impact on the ground.
“The number of troops is small relative to the numbers Russia has committed to the invasion,” says Alex Brideau, a Russia expert at Eurasia Group. While “an influx of new troops helps Russia maintain its offensive operations,” it’s unclear how many there will be or how they’ll be deployed.
But South Korea is not amused. It has warned Moscow it could begin supplying weapons to Kyiv — a step it’s avoided so far due to a policy against sending arms to countries actively involved in conflicts — as the Kremlin deepens ties with Pyongyang.
“South Korea is constrained both legally and politically from providing weapons directly to Ukraine — as it has threatened to do since the Putin-Kim summit in June — but could provide them indirectly through the US and Eastern European countries,” says Jeremy Chan, a Korea expert at Eurasia Group.
Seoul has also been reluctant to negatively impact long-term relations with Moscow, says Chan. But if it proceeds, he says, it has “world-class weaponry that could meaningfully change Ukraine’s defensive and offensive capabilities.”
“South Korea’s top concern remains what support Russia is providing North Korea in return for the troops,” says Chan. “Technological assistance to Pyongyang’s ballistic and nuclear weapons capabilities remain the redline for South Korea, although there has not been any public confirmation of these transfers yet.”
Around 1,100 inmates are expected to be let out early in an attempt to ease overcrowding in prisons.
Hard Numbers: UK prisons hit capacity, Lula’s head injury keeps him home from BRICS, South Korea mulls sending weapons to Ukraine, Peru’s former president convicted
5: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will not be attending the BRICS summit in person this week in Russia because he is recovering from a serious head injury following a fall at home over the weekend. According to his doctor, the fall caused “great” trauma to the back of his head, requiring five stitches for the injury and resulting in a “small brain hemorrhage” in the temporal-frontal region.
1,500: A senior official from the office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday that Seoul could consider providing defensive and lethal weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea purportedly shipping 1,500 special forces personnel to Russia to assist in the war. The prospect underscores the potential for the divided Korean peninsula to become entangled in the conflict in Eastern Europe.
20: Peru’s former President Alejandro Toledo was convicted of taking bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht and sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday. Toledo, a 78-year-old economist, is convicted of taking $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for letting it build the road connecting Peru’s southern coast with an Amazonian area in western Brazil.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the National Defense University in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 7, 2024, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea severs connections to South as tensions climb
South Korea’s military announced Monday it had detected North Korea preparing to destroy roads connecting the two countries, the latest in a series of steps advancing Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s renunciation of peaceful reunification. Pyongyang also threatened to attack the South over alleged drone incursions this weekend and announced it would begin fortifying its side of the border last week.
Kim’s sister and close ally Kim Yo Jong also flung invective at Seoul’s troops on Monday, calling them “mongrels tamed by Yankees” and saying that their “master” — the US — must be held accountable for the alleged drone flights over the Hermit Kingdom. On Friday, South Korea’s defense minister denied responsibility for the drones, which allegedly dropped anti-regime leaflets, and later said “we cannot verify the truth behind North Korea’s claims.” It is highly likely that any drones were flown by private organizations that attempt to agitate in North Korea and have distributed leaflets by balloon in the past.
All in all, Pyongyang’s provocations — which, lest we forget, include deploying troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine — are part of a pattern of escalation dating back to at least the fall of 2023, says Eurasia Group regional analyst Jeremy Chan. Whether it continues may depend heavily on the results of the US election, as “North Korea is trying to build out leverage it could bargain away in a potential future Trump administration while retaining its nuclear deterrent,” says Chan.
Trump’s advisors have signaled an openness to accepting a freeze in North Korea’s nuclear program – rather than full denuclearization – in return for sanctions relief. “But a freeze probably isn’t going to be enough for Trump,” says Chan. “If Kim could also agree to a moratorium on developing North Korea’s nuclear-powered submarines, military spy satellites, and long-range missiles, however, that could give enough of a win to Trump to sell to the American people.”