[Goose]

https://www.twz.com/news-features/nearly...s-spy-boss

Budanov sometimes lies or exaggerates. Haven't seen any photo or video evidence of substantial numbers of North Korean regular troops yet.

Agree. Both sides do that. Remember the flapex when Russia was supposedly recruiting "thousands" of Syrian fighters? There were undoubtedly some such fighters but not enough to really "matter". It is also difficult to imagine how North Korean forces would be integrated into the Russian ORBAT. Would Korean units exist at the battalion level or would individual soldiers be attached to existing Russian formations? I can see how it would make sense to have Korean units operate and maintain the Korean ballistic weapons being provided, but it wouldn't require 11K troops to do that.

 Of course, if all you want is bodies, it perhaps doesn't matter. North Korea has a population of 26 million. Russia has a population of 146 million. An 18% increase in available troop strength would certainly benefit Russia. North Korea obviously can't commit its entire military strength to Russia in Ukraine. However North Korea maintains a much larger percentage of their population in the military than Russia does. They have the fourth largest military in the world with a troop strength of 1.3 million. North Korea can indeed supply Russia a lot of "bodies". One of Russia's paramount goals is avoiding the need for a "general mobilization". Anything that helps that is pure gold for them.

[Goose]

https://www.twz.com/news-features/nearly...s-spy-boss

Budanov sometimes lies or exaggerates. Haven't seen any photo or video evidence of substantial numbers of North Korean regular troops yet.

Agree. Both sides do that. Remember the flapex when Russia was supposedly recruiting "thousands" of Syrian fighters? There were undoubtedly some such fighters but not enough to really "matter". It is also difficult to imagine how North Korean forces would be integrated into the Russian ORBAT. Would Korean units exist at the battalion level or would individual soldiers be attached to existing Russian formations? I can see how it would make sense to have Korean units operate and maintain the Korean ballistic weapons being provided, but it wouldn't require 11K troops to do that.

 Of course, if all you want is bodies, it perhaps doesn't matter. North Korea has a population of 26 million. Russia has a population of 146 million. An 18% increase in available troop strength would certainly benefit Russia. North Korea obviously can't commit its entire military strength to Russia in Ukraine. However North Korea maintains a much larger percentage of their population in the military than Russia does. They have the fourth largest military in the world with a troop strength of 1.3 million. North Korea can indeed supply Russia a lot of "bodies". One of Russia's paramount goals is avoiding the need for a "general mobilization". Anything that helps that is pure gold for them.