[News Now] Putin 'first mention' of sending North Korean troops...Why did Russia change its position?

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor
■ Starring: Kim Yeol-soo, Director of Security Strategy at the Korea Military Research Institute

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsNOW] when quoting.

[Anchor]
Russian President Putin was the first to comment on the dispatch of North Korean troops. I said, "We'll take care of it." He didn't deny the dispatch of North Korean troops. Kim Yeol-soo, head of the Security Strategy Division of the Korea Military Research Institute, is here. Welcome. It's true that we sent troops to do it on our own, can we see it like this?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
You can look at it like that. When North Korea sent more than 13,000 containers to Russia, they all said it was fake news. And even regarding the dispatch of North Korean troops this time, the staff of the Russian Embassy at the UN and the staff of the North Korean mission at the UN said that what they kept talking about was a ridiculous rumor, a groundless rumor, and a ghost story. But since President Putin is the head of a country, reporters asked questions on the day of the BRICS meeting, so we can't lie and do it ourselves, so that's why he admitted to sending troops.


[Anchor]
So even if Russia sees it now, there is too much evidence to say no.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Yes, there are so many.

[Anchor]
Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty signed with North Korea by the Russian House of Representatives. It's a bit complicated. It is said that it was ratified right away. What is this about?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
We signed a treaty last June. The key point is Article 4 of the treaty. In the event of a state of war, both countries are supposed to provide military aid and other aid without delay. But it's June and now it's October, so how many months have passed? But this time in Russia, we tried to ratify it by the end of this month through the Duma meeting, but in fact, as our anchor said, there were too many North Korean troops sending it, and the video was released, so we couldn't even deny it. If so, let's ratify it as soon as possible. In that sense, I think it was ratified yesterday.

[Anchor]
What kind of grounds do you want to come up with?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. That's what it means.

[Anchor]
I was also interested in where the North Korean military would be sent and deployed, but I heard that it was deployed in the Kursk region, what region is it?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Kursk is not Ukrainian territory, it's coming out of that map right now.That's Russian territory. So last August, Ukraine made this decision. Rather than continue to defend now, it would be better to go into the Russian region and attack one area so we can secure it, which is Kursk province. The reason I thought that was because if there was a peace agreement or ceasefire talks later on, we would be able to trade the Kursk region to the eastern Donbas region. There's an elite Ukrainian unit in there. So it took up about twice the size of Seoul. So it's over 1,000 square kilometers. But as a few months passed, the Russian military retook about a third, and if the North Korean army enters, it is highly likely that it will be put into this area to retake the rest. Let's look at it like this.

[Anchor]
North Korea has sent troops, so what do we do? There have been talks about this now, and President Yoon Suk Yeol himself mentioned the possibility of providing weapons to Ukraine. How much possibility do we need to see?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
This is because the NSC Standing Committee decided that last time, and when making that decision, we said we would decide after looking at the level of the match between North Korea and Russia. There's this level of collusion. North Korea sends troops. So the size of the dispatch, the mission, the role of the North Korean military, the availability of additional dispatch, and the size of the guns and shells that may continue to be supported. These are the first characteristics of the union.

Wouldn't the second benefit be the opposite? So what Russia gives to North Korea, and that's an anti-aircraft intercept missile called the S300 or S400. Otherwise, the state-of-the-art fighter that North Korea so badly wants. And the state-of-the-art military technology, such as re-entry technology or multi-warhead technology, otherwise SLBM technology, reconnaissance satellite technology, and nuclear-powered strategic submarine technology. It is said that we will review our support while carefully watching how much it is coming and going, but the review of the support is also divided into two stages. If you look at it easily. After all, when it comes to military support, there will be defensive weapons and offensive weapons. I'll give you some defensive weapons first and attack weapons, but I think it's a long time later. I think it is the government's position to passively say that it will deal with this while looking at the situation.

[Anchor]
But if North Korea sends troops and we provide weapons, I think we can see it as a proxy war between the two Koreas.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
It's a little overrated. North Korea sent troops. What we're sending is not sending weapons like that right away. What I can send now, I think it will send very few monitors. Even in the Hamas-Israel war, our military sent monitors. There's North Korean equipment used by Hamas personnel, weapons. I sent it because we have to understand their characteristics. I think we'll probably send a monitor there again this time. So, you'll need things like North Korean tactics, North Korean equipment, and things like that to get information about these things. Also, psychological warfare agents will be needed, and interpreters will have to interpret them well if they are captured. So let me reiterate that even though very few of these monitoring personnel can be dispatched, it's not like they're sending troops or they're providing weapons right away.

[Anchor]
Yesterday, the National Assembly also talked about sending troops, and Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said that he is nothing more than a bullet-bearing mercenary. Let's hear that. So it's not a dispatch, it's almost a mercenary. When we heard that time, we knew that a skilled special forces unit went, but is it a different concept?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
I think the thing we can prepare the most is the dispatch of Korean troops to Vietnam. We carried our flag, wore our combat uniforms, and went to the farewell ceremony. That includes the Maengho Unit, the Pigeon Unit, and the Blue Dragon Unit, but if we look at the video now, North Korea doesn't have any North Korean flag or wear a North Korean military uniform, and all of them have received Russian supplies. If I say so, I think I might try to deceive this, but in the end, whether it's 10,000 or 12,000 people, I think that this is not organized according to one command, but rather that some members of the Russian military continue to be distributed.
Now Russian mercenaries come from 10 countries, including those from Nepal. As such, I think North Korea is not sending regular troops, but accepting them now as if it were receiving mercenaries.

[Anchor]
When you are deployed, you don't wear your country's uniform, but your country's uniform?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. You wear your country's uniform and put your country's mark on it. In the past, when the Korean War broke out in the Republic of Korea, other countries participated in the war as UN troops. Those countries all wore their own military uniforms. When we went to Vietnam and Vietnam, we wore our military uniforms. But I don't do that now. And the problem over there is, as you just asked, in fact, the storm squad is the best special forces troops. But if you look at those faces, as you can see from the video, they look very young. So the agents of the Storm Corps still seem to be in their late 20s, but those personnel now seem to be in their late teens or early 20s. So those guys have very little combat capability. But if those people go, it's a mercenary concept in the end, and there's a strong possibility that it's going to be a bullet stand, so let's look at it like this.

[Anchor]
So how should I look at an agent who is not an experienced special forces, who is not a soldier or a mercenary? I think the role will be different.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
The missions and roles depend on what missions are assigned, for example, when the Republic of Korea went to the Vietnam War, we had our own military command system. It doesn't belong to the United States. So at that time, the U.S. Forces Korea Command, the U.S. Forces Korea Command, and the U.S. Forces Korea Command were cooperative, not subordinate to each other. I did it independently. But now that I'm going, that's not the case. So, in my opinion now, I think it's a very problematic dispatch.

[Anchor]
We are also very interested in what position China will take in such a situation that North Korea and Russia are so close to sending troops. The U.S. media even used this expression that China must have been annoyed.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
I don't know about China, I don't know. I told you like this. In fact, how can you not know? I know, but if I say I know this, additional questions will be asked by the spokesperson again. Then you'll ask what you think of the matter and how you evaluate it. If you ask, this is painful. That's why I just said I don't know, but I'm saying that there's an inconvenience in the answer to that question. That's why President Xi Jinping and President Putin held a meeting at the BRICS meeting. There was no result from the talks, but I think there is an answer in the results. We talked candidly and constructively with each other. That means that each other's opinions were very different. That's why I think China probably said something a little uncomfortable, and Russia defended against Russia.

[Anchor]
In any case, China's influence in North Korea seems to be weakening a little, which President Xi Jinping does not seem to want, so what changes do you think they will make?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Who's going to make that change...

[Anchor]
From President Xi Jinping's perspective.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
From President Xi Jinping's point of view, it's not been a day or two since the relationship between North Korea and China has been burnt down.
It's already happened a few months ago, and it's getting worse, especially when North Korean troops are dispatched to Russia, this is a very inconvenient position for China. The reason is that if this happens, it will support Ukraine even more in part of the NATO forces, or in the European Union. But from China's point of view, it's the biggest export target of the European Union. You have to get along well, but it can make you uncomfortable. From that point of view, the relationship between China and North Korea can be further apart, let's look at it like this.

[Anchor]
There have been constant rumors that North Korea is likely to launch an ICBM provocation because the U.S. presidential election is just around the corner, but Secretary Kim Yong-hyun said at the National Assembly that he could try to launch a summit. What do you mean by normal angle launch?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
In fact, North Korea unveiled a 12-axis, 24-wheel super missile launcher last September. This is actually a secret, too. The other day, however, it was revealed that the Hwasong-18 and the Hwasong-16 and Na are both solid fuels, one that can hit the U.S. 15,000 kilometers, and one that can hit the Guam and the U.S. military bases in Japan. Looking at this, I think that in the end, there may be some missile provocation in the near future. If you briefly explain the difference between the normal angle and the elevation, the elevation angle comes in like this. Then, the most important thing when we come in from the air layer is that when we see a meteor floating in space, it burns out and disappears as it enters the air layer. If you go at a normal angle like that, you have to keep going through the air layer at an angle. Then it's all burnt out. North Korea has never done that before.

So there is a possibility of a normal angle launch on here. Of course, if you shoot the Hwasong-18 in that way, it will fly 15,000km, which will be a big problem. There's a possibility that we can adjust the amount of fuel and launch it at a normal angle, and as I said earlier, we've introduced a 12-axis, 24-wheel super-large launcher, so we can launch a new missile here at a high angle, so let's look at it like this.

[Anchor]
You only need to complete the re-entry, re-entry technology that you mentioned, and the re-entry technology that comes back. It must be North Korea's long-cherished project, and finally, the key technology that North Korea wants to gain after sending troops to Russia is its re-entry. Do you think Putin will give it to you?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Like that. Who do you think will have a stronger say if I go and bleed more? Do you think the more North Korean troops go and bleed, the stronger Russia and President Putin will have a say?

[Anchor]
Chairman Kim Jong-un will have a strong say.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. Kim Jong Un will have a strong say. Then you'll have more demands and want more advanced technology. Currently, there have not been so many victims, but if we go with 12,000 people like that, there can be a huge number of victims. The more we send additional troops, the more victims we can get, and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will be forced to come up with the technology that Russia really does not want to give. Kim Jong-un is aiming for it, so let's look at it like this.

[Anchor] You're preparing a bill for
in your mind, right? This has been Kim Yeol-soo, head of the Security Strategy Office at the Korea Military Research Institute. Thank you.