Explained: What does North Korea get from sending its soldiers to fight Russia’s war?

It is clear what Russia stands to gain from an influx of some 10,000 North Korean troops to aid its war in Ukraine. 

Less apparent is what might be in it for Kim Jong Un.

“North Korea might be getting combat experience with drones and some real combat experience in a 21st century war,” Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, told our US partner network NBC News. 

“But that is secondary to the strategic capabilities that they might obtain from Russia – and I think that the concern on the South Korean side is exactly driven by this.”

Western and South Korean officials have suggested previously that North Korea was being paid through various means, including resources, food and in some cases hard cash. But relations between the two countries have visibly deepened as the war in Ukraine has raged on.

A visit by Kim to Russia’s Vostochny spaceport last summer, which set the stage for the supply of North Korean munitions, was met with speculation that Mr Putin was trading away valuable Russian knowledge in the sphere of space technologies, which have vast overlaps with those used in a successful nuclear program.

“I think that question whether or not that is actually happening is the key,” Mr Gabuev said.

“North Korea is trying to get as many benefits as it can from this relationship,” said Edward Howell, an expert on North Korea at the Chatham House think tank. 

“And it now has full, unwavering support of Russia at the UN Security Council, which is extremely beneficial for North Korea, because it knows that it can test missiles, it can provoke South Korea.

“It can even conduct a nuclear test and get away with it, because sanctions are just not going to be issued because of Russia’s veto power,” he said.

It also offers North Korea a testing ground for its troops.

“If thousands of North Korean troops learn how to survive on a battlefield full of drones,” Mr Gabuev said, “that is a lesser problem than North Korea having quieter nuclear-capable submarines.”