North Korea Fighting Against Ukraine: How and Why Russian Propaganda Denies It

Since the full-scale invasion, discussions have occasionally arisen about the so-called “Korean scenario” for Ukraine. In 2022, “Koreanization” referred to Russia's potential attempt to consolidate all occupied territories into a single quasi-state entity. In 2023, responding to Kremlin propaganda about a possible “Korean scenario” — the division of Ukraine into two parts — the Ukrainian side assured that “there will be no 38th parallel.” In 2024, the term “Korean scenario” — a situation where, after active hostilities cease, the war has no clear winner — was used as a scare tactic by Serbia's pro-Putin president, Aleksandar Vučić. More details about “Koreanization” can be found in the article “Yalta-3, Finlandization, Korean Scenario: Is Putin Really Ready to Discuss Anything Other Than Ukraine's Capitulation?” By the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, the term “Korean scenario” seemed to take on a new meaning: the growing closeness of the dictatorial regimes of Putin and Kim Jong Un and the involvement of North Korean troops in the war against Ukraine. Here is how propagandists lie about the participation of North Korean soldiers in the war against Ukraine.

The Soviet Union was one of North Korea's main allies, maintaining economic cooperation, ideological alignment, and cultural exchange, as well as providing Pyongyang with economic aid. After the collapse of the USSR, Moscow and Pyongyang did not have much in common  to sustain their previous level of relations. However, when Russia began distancing itself from the West in the early 2000s, Putin resorted to the geopolitical principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Thus, ties between Russia and the DPRK began to gradually recover.

Putin visited North Korea twice: first in 2000, when the current leader's father, Kim Jong Il, was in power, and again in 2024 under the rule of Kim Jong Un. In 2000, the leaders signed the Treaty on Friendship, Good-Neighborly Relations and Cooperation. This was Putin's attempt to restore relations with North Korea and reestablish Russia's influence on the Korean Peninsula, which had weakened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent international sanctions against Russia further propelled the rapprochement between the two anti-democratic regimes.

Military-technical cooperation and arms trade between Russia and North Korea intensified significantly after Kim Jong Un's visit to Vladivostok in 2023. By mid-2023, the first alleged shipments of North Korean weapons to Russia were noticed. In the fall of 2023, US intelligence released information that North Korea had sent more than one thousand containers of ammunition to Russia. Pyongyang supplied Russia with large-caliber ammunition, artillery shells, and short-range ballistic missiles. According to the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, North Korea has become a crucial supplier for Russia's aggression against Ukraine, although exact data on order volumes and the quantity of supplied and promised weaponry remains unknown.

A new chapter of cooperation began with Putin's visit to Pyongyang in the summer of 2024 and the signing of the North Korean–Russian Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. At that time, propagandists boasted about the growing alliance between the dictatorships, claiming that the North Korean “lend-lease” was as good as the American one. “The threat of a contingent of North Korean volunteers appearing on the front lines could cool the enthusiasm of NATO members discussing increased involvement in Ukraine,” stated a propaganda channel with 135,000 subscribers.

However, when North Korean soldiers actually arrived to the front lines to fight alongside Russian invaders, Russian propagandists reacted strangely. Some praised the “fearless berserkers” demonstrating unprecedented combat techniques, while others fervently denied their participation in the war or presence at the front lines.

In October 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that the “deepening alliance” had reached a level where North Korea was not only supplying Russian troops with weapons used against Ukraine, but also providing them with manpower. Zelensky stated that North Korea had “effectively joined” the war against Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian propaganda aimed at the Ukrainian audience tried in every way to refute these facts.

For instance, in October, propagandists quoted self-proclaimed Belarusian leader Lukashenko, who called reports of North Korean involvement in the war “nonsense.” In a channel with nearly a million followers, a November post claimed that the Office of the President of Ukraine was supposedly preparing to “surrender” Russia's Kursk region, which is why they “are now pushing the narrative about North Korean soldiers even harder.” Another propaganda Telegram channel with 64,000 subscribers mocked Ukraine's claims: “It’s hard to find a Korean in a dark forest, especially when there isn't one there.”

In the fall of 2024, Russia’s North Korean “brothers-in-arms” were deployed in the Kursk region and on the Kharkiv front. Russian propaganda resources aimed at the Ukrainian audience stubbornly ignored this and continued to ridicule Ukraine's communication on the “North Korean” topic, saying that Ukraine is “pushing this case” because its military situation is dire, and it is shifting the blame onto the Koreans.

In mid-December 2024, a propaganda Telegram channel with a million followers wrote that “the media is pushing the story about North Korean soldiers, whom no one has seen in the era of UAVs and satellites. This has turned into some kind of joke. Back in October, we wrote that this was being done to extract more weapons and money from the West and to justify intensified mobilization in Ukraine.”

The real “joke” was that propaganda channels remained silent when North Korean soldiers were captured by Ukraine and videos of them surfaced. An anonymous Telegram channel claimed in the fall that “no undeniable evidence of North Korean military personnel's participation in the war has been provided, and Ukrainian soldiers in interviews with Western media admit they have not encountered DPRK troops.” But when such “undeniable evidence” did appear, the channel simply ignored it.

On January 11, 2025, Ukrainian forces captured the first two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region. “They serve as living proof of North Korea’s illegal participation in Russia’s war,”