The Ukrainian army managed to recruit up to 35,000 soldiers per month during the summer. By the General Staff’s own admission, this figure has now fallen to 20,000.”People are demotivated by corruption scandals, the disorganization of the army and the state of the troops at the front. analyzes the Polish researcher, traveling in the Chernihiv region. “And even if Ukraine managed to recruit all these people, there are too few training centers, both on the territory and abroad. There is a crisis in the management of the army and the war. If kyiv wants to win, the entire system must change. There are good commanders, but also far too many officers with too low ethical and military standards, and an impotent military police. As a result, the soldiers are fleeing, it is estimated that several tens of thousands of them have deserted in recent months“.
The North Korean threat becomes clearer
Moscow knows this and is taking advantage of it. Russian troops continue to advance slowly but constantly in the East, where they have taken an area of 478 km2 since the beginning of October, its largest territorial gain in many months. On Tuesday alone, more than 175 clashes took place between the two camps, mainly in the Donetsk Oblast. Pokrovsk is practically within rifle range, although the city constitutes a strategic node and is home to the only Ukrainian-controlled factory producing the coke necessary for the manufacture of steel. “The situation is bad, it’s true. I don’t know if the Russians can be stopped before Pokrovsk“, recognizes Jakub Ber. “But it is certain that the loss of this factory would be a serious blow to Ukraine.”
Further north, Russia’s Kursk region is still partly under Ukrainian control, but recent signals are particularly worrying. The United States announced on Tuesday that it had detected “indications that a small number“North Korean soldiers”are already in the region” and should quickly be joined by “2,000 additional soldiers“. Washington, which estimates the number of Korean troops deployed in Russia at 10,000 in total, has officially recognized that Ukraine “should fight back“if these North Korean soldiers entered its territory, which would de facto lead to globalization of the conflict. Providing weapons to one of the belligerents is one thing, sending armed men is another.
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South Korean arms deliveries?
“We have communicated with China on this matter to make it clear that we are concerned and that they should be concerned about this destabilizing action by two of their neighbors,” declared the spokesperson for the American State Department without much hope of seeing Beijing intervene to reason with Pyongyang. In a position of strength after the flamboyant Brics summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Emirates United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt) organized in Kazan last week, Russian diplomacy announced on Wednesday that the North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs – Choe Son Hui – had just arrived in Moscow to hold discussions “strategic” with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov, whose office also spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Forced to react, kyiv made contact with Seoul. A South Korean delegation is expected to visit Ukraine this week with the aim of “to intensify exchanges” between the two countries, and, why not, allow kyiv to benefit from the significant South Korean arms production. “It is difficult to assess the military contribution of the North Korean contingent at the moment”, estimates Jakub Ber. “But a few thousand soldiers will not fundamentally change the situation. As it stands, this is essentially part of Vladimir Putin’s little diplomatic game and geopolitical escalation with the United States.“.
