Amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, North Korea will provide roughly enough troops to cover the average number of Russian casualties in Ukraine each week, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on Friday.

The Russia-Ukraine war has been going on for more than two years after the Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022. Although Moscow has aimed for a quick victory over its eastern European neighbor, which is considered to have a much smaller army, its vigorous defense effort, backed by Western aid, takes prevented from making substantial gains. .

Western leaders see the deployment of North Korean troops on the battlefield as a significant escalation. This could lead to technology transfers from Moscow to Pyongyang, potentially advancing North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, thereby affecting Indo-Pacific relations.

Meanwhile, ISW, a think-tank based in Washington, DC, analyzed figures provided by the US Department of Defense (DOD) and reports on North Korean troops training to deploy to Ukraine and found that the number “ is unlikely to present Russia with a long-term solution to its labor concerns.”

The US sounded the alarm about North Korea’s deployment plan about 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, which “will probably increase Russian forces near Ukraine in the next few weeks,” the deputy said. Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week.

However, ISW noted that this number seems relatively small when considering the number of Russian troops being lost every day, which the US Secretary of Defense. Lloyd Austin was about 1,200 soldiers per day.

The contingent of North Korean troops, which ISW reports could be as many as 12,000, would therefore cover only about 10 days — at most — of Russian troops lost “if North Korean troops face the same rates of casualties’, which would therefore undermine the ‘battlefield’. lessons that Pyongyang hopes to learn.”

“(North Korean leader) Kim (Jong Un) is unlikely to commit his forces to face such battlefield losses indefinitely,” ISW wrote in its assessment on Friday.

the Pentagon said Newsweek via email on Saturday that he had “no further comment to add” to reports of North Korean troops and the deployment in Russia, adding: “In general, we don’t talk about matters that are exclusive to Russia or the DPRK.”

Newsweek reached out to the State Department by email Saturday afternoon for comment.

However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that U.S. and Chinese officials had detained “a solid conversation this very week,“, stressing the need for Beijing to “use the influence they have to work to reduce these activities”.

ISW noted that from publicly available information and statements from Pentagon officials, it remains unclear how Russia plans to use North Korean troops. An assessment determined that the troops most likely aimed “to engage in war on behalf of Russia to gain valuable combat experience in a modern war.”

The lack of regular, modern warfare between the leading military powers proved to be one of the complicating factors of the Russian invasion. Russia had planned to conquer Ukraine in just days by capturing Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, but the smaller nation retaliated with stockpiled weapons provided by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (nato) allies.

As the conflict dragged on, some experts feared the war would prove a testing ground for Russian allies to see how their weapons fared against the weapons and defense systems of NATO – and more specifically the US.

Iran and North Korea appeared to take full advantage of this situation, supplying Russia with drones and munitions and taking performance into account. Providing troops to Russia, where they can gain vital and rare experience in modern warfare, could be the next step in North Korea’s plans to continue trying to build up its military forces.

However, the deployment of North Korean troops may prove more problematic. Austin told reporters this week that troops were seen wearing Russian military uniforms while deployed in Ukraine.

In addition, South Korea’s intelligence agency said an initial batch of 1,500 fighters traveled to Russia and were equipped with Russian army uniforms, Russian-made weapons and fake documents claiming the fighters were residents of the Siberian regions. More troops were expected to travel soon, the agency said in mid-October.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urged US and NATO allies to act before North Korean troops could take action, writing in a Telegram post that “everyone is waiting” until North Korea does something, by which time it may be too late.