What do North Korean Troops Mean for Ukraine?
Memes don't win wars
A number of people reached out to me about this topic. I can’t talk about everything because of ongoing relationships, but there are some things I can talk about.
Roughly 3-4 brigades or ~12,000 North Korean Special Forces troops may be training and preparing to enter the front lines.
They will likely be used as brigade-level replacements rather than one for one replacements due to language barriers.
It is likely that North Korean Special Forces will fight as well as to be expected from any country that has elite forces. They will likely have superior discipline, although their lack of combat experience may make them less effective.
If North Korea sends any regular troops, they may have extreme problems with physical fitness and training although their discipline may be better than expected.
The Destiny Bridges Podcast featuring Jordan Harbringer can be found here.
Special thanks to syriacus.org for analyzing the original video. The translation is below:
Confidence scale
Very High Confidence - 95%+
High confidence - 75-95%
Medium Confidence - 45-65%
Low Confidence - 25-45%
Very Low Confidence >25%
07 SECONDS
Language Used - Korean - Very High Confidence
Content of speech - "Don't cross over" - "넘어가지 말라"/"Nom-oh-gah-ji Malla" - High confidence
Dialect (intonation) - Generic North Korean intonation - High confidence
Dialect (word choice) - No particular words identified of dialect significance
Speaker Identified? - The man seen in the video between 00 SECONDS and 11 SECONDS standing stationary, wearing matching camo cap and parka - Very Low Confidence
Notes - Speaker is using informal speech in a manner that denotes an order to a subordinate - Person speaking is very likely a senior NCO or officer (HIGH CONFIDENCE). This is identified by the lack of any formal speech endings such as '요'/'Yoh', '십시오'/'Sib-si-oh' or '(하)세요'/(Ha)say-oh'
17-20 SECONDS
Language Used - Russian - Very High Confidence
Content of speech - (BELOW)
(17 SECONDS) "I don't have it!" - "Да нет у меня"/"Da net u menya" - High confidence
(18 SECONDS) UNIDENTIFIED
(18.5-20 SECONDS) "Well, use *UNIDENTIFIED*" - "Используй"/"Ispol'zuy" (Spoken as an order/request) - Medium confidence
Dialect (intonation) - No notable intonation
Dialect (word choice) - No words belonging to a specific dialect used
Speaker identified? - Possibly the two men seen between 11 SECONDS and 20 SECONDS, one seated to the left of the frame wearing a matching set of camo cap and jacket and the other standing, holding carboard and wearing no cap, a khaki undershirt and uniform pants. - VERY LOW CONFIDENCE
Notes - Language used is informal and exasperated - Joint Russian/Korean linguist has identified that one of the speakers may have been speaking Korean just before the first Russian language sentence was identified (VERY LOW CONFIDENCE)
25-26 SECONDS
Language Used - Korean - Very High confidence
Content of speech - "Hey, hey, hey!" (As a means to grab attention) - "야, 야, 야!"/"Yah, Yah, Yah!" - Very High confidence
Dialect (intonation) - Generic North Korean intonation - High confidence
Dialect (word choice) - No particular words identified of dialect significance
Speaker identified? - Unidentified, but linguistically, contextually and tonally very similar to the speaker heard at 07 SECONDS - Medium confidence
Notes - Language used is very informal as the use of 'Yah' is solely used by people substantially more senior than the person it's being used on. In a military context, this would only be used by someone directing orders to subordinates
Overall analysis of video content
Language used throughout the video is a mixture of both Russian and Korean (VERY HIGH CONFIDENCE), the intonation of the spoken dialect is of the North Korean dialect (HIGH CONFIDENCE), however no specific words of particular North Korean origin/specificity were used. The content of the Korean language used is in the context of a superior officer or NCO giving orders to subordinates (VERY HIGH CONFIDENCE) however no speakers could be visually identified in the video as being directly responsible for the spoken content.
Supporting evidence
YTN News, a reliable (FM 2-22.3/NATO scale B2/B1 source) in South Korea has also translated the video with results very similar to our own. Results can be viewed here (source is in Korean language)
https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0104_202410200658433876
Additional remarks
Translation of the video content was done to the best of our linguists ability, together they make up native speakers of both Russian and Korean with the former also being fluent in Korean. Due to the poor quality of the video and its respective audio, it was difficult to identify certain language used. Words identified have been individually assessed to the above confidence scale.
One thing Ryan misses (or just didn’t mention) is that these troops will almost certainly not be allowed back into North Korea. They are being sent to die for a propaganda win for Kim Jong Un and Putin, but he cannot allow them to return. They will have far too much information to allow back.
I picture Kim Jong Un as a needy child-man, hungry for validation and praise. Super-excited to test his lovely well-drilled troops (identical tin soldiers) in battle, and to demonstrate the superiority of his glorious regime. I bet he fantasizes about great victories, a chest full of medals, and international acclaim.
Then there’s Putin. I’ll bet you he has zero respect for North Korea. I’ll bet he thinks Un is a maggot. BUT, he needs to add more humans to the meat-grinder.
I’m devastated for Ukraine and tearing my hair out over the lack of western support for such a strategic ally. But well, I’m cynically holding my popcorn and ready to watch how these two egotistical despots work together. Hopefully not well.