SEOUL, South Korea — With his troops poised for a major offensive in Russia, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has much to gain and little to lose for the blood price his soldiers look likely to pay on the front lines against Ukraine, South Korean analysts say.

North Korean troops are “already engaging in combat” in Russia’s Kursk region against an invading Ukrainian force, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service said Wednesday. The Pentagon said earlier this month that some 10,000 North Korean troops had been dispatched to help drive the Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.

A chunk of the Russian region was seized in a shock cross-border offensive by Ukrainian forces in August. Kyiv’s gambit proved highly embarrassing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but has so far failed to relieve Russian advances in the fighting for control of Ukraine’s occupied Donbas region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hailed the Kursk incursion as a valuable bargaining chip in any future peace negotiations.

The unprecedented foreign deployment of so many troops so far from North Korea represents a gamble for Mr. Kim, but many think it’s a bet with the odds strongly in his favor. His troops will obtain valuable battlefield experience and the security, economic and diplomatic ties to Russia that Mr. Kim has cultivated will only grow stronger.

“For North Korea, there is much more to gain than to lose,” Doo Jin-ho, chair of the Global Strategy Division at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, told foreign reporters in Seoul. “They will try to maximize their benefits … at the risk of their own readiness and at the risk of mass casualties.”

The Biden administration very much shares South Korea’s concerns: Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Russian-North Korean military cooperation was a “two-way street” that could increase the danger for South Korea and other U.S. allies in the region.

Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins told the Reuters news agency in an interview Wednesday, “We don’t have anything definitive … in terms of nuclear technology going from Russia to [North Korea], but obviously we have an overall concern about the developing relationship between the two countries.”

“Not only because of what technology could be being transferred, but also just the growing relationship and the fact that [North Korea] is assisting Russia, not only with their developing defense industrial base, but also obviously with the 10,000 troops or so that are in Russia right now.”

Pros and cons

The shipment of some 8 million artillery shells and tactical rockets to Russia has depleted Pyongyang’s armories, while the removal of troops has weakened the regime’s defenses at home, Mr. Doo acknowledged. Given the colossal body count of the Ukraine conflict — neither side releases official figures, but casualties are believed to number in the high hundreds of thousands — North Korea’s forces could suffer significant losses.

And while Mr. Kim’s troops are disciplined, cohesive and fit, they are inexperienced in modern warfare, in joint operations with foreign troops, and in combat in the flat, open terrain of Ukraine. North Koreans also have little experience with the drone-dominated form of warfare they are likely to encounter.

But North Korea will secure some clear advantages from being the first third party to join the 33-month-long conflict, Mr. Doo said.

Russia could provide “a security umbrella” for the largely isolated Kim regime, he said, similar to the role the U.S. military plays in South Korea. The Kremlin could also provide a “gateway” for North Korea to participate in global organizations such as the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperative Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

Russian economic and financial aid will also cushion the pain of the deployment. Mr. Doo estimates the economic benefits will total about $714 million for North Korea’s depleted national treasury. He and other South Korean analysts believe there are 13,000 North Korean troops in Russia, just a small fraction of an army that numbers around 1.2 million service members.

For a military that has not fought a full-fledged war since the end of the Korean conflict in 1953, the combat experience gained will also be shared among a larger number of troops: “They are there for a rotation,” Mr. Doo said. “In a given year, they will have around 20,000 soldiers.”

Mr. Kim is likely betting the experience will boost defense innovation at home and the quality of the arms his soldiers carry. North Korea will “gradually be able to switch to Russian-made weapon systems that have proven their reliability,” Mr. Doo said.

Russian military hardware likely on “Kim’s bucket list,” according to Mr. Doo, includes re-entry vehicles that bring the warheads on ballistic missiles safely into Earth’s atmosphere; reconnaissance satellites and related ground-control systems; and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Quality questions

While the Russian deployment was “planned meticulously and with a specific plan in mind,” outside analysts still have questions about the composition and capabilities of the North Korean soldiers dispatched to the Russian operation, Mr. Doo said.

While considerable reporting has focused on “special forces” being deployed from North Korea’s crack 11th Corps — the “Storm Corps” which comprises 200,000 men in light infantry, amphibious commandos and airborne brigades — analysts admit there is no confirmation of what their role will be in the fighting.

Yang Uk, a security specialist at Seoul’s Asan Institute, doubts that Mr. Kim risked sending 13,000 of his commandos abroad, which would be a lopsided force.

“I think maybe one brigade is from the Storm Corps, and the other three are line infantry brigades from regular corps,” he said.

While U.S. sources report the North Koreans have apparently been trained in trench-clearing by Russian troops, this is not a normal mission for special forces.

Infantry combat “would chew up your men and waste manpower,” said Steven Tharp, a South Korea-based retired U.S. Ranger officer. “They should be attacking strategic targets in the rear.”

A trench line, he added, “is not a strategic target.”

“Forming a penetration or striking a second line is their specialty,” agreed Mr. Doo. “What they are known for are penetrations in mountains and oceans, but Kursk is mainly flat land.”

They have proved their effectiveness in the past: In 1968, a 31-man commando force penetrated the DMZ and nearly assassinated the South Korean president. South Korea’s military was stunned by the commandos’ physical fitness, fieldcraft and discipline.

Now, times and technologies have changed, Mr. Doo warned.

“In the past, … it was physically about how fast you could run and how strong you are, but now it is about drone technologies, which is something North Korean troops are probably not that well accustomed to,” he said.

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.