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This is the 30 minute TV version of Jan Jekielek’s interview with Greg Scarlatoiu. The longer-form version was released on Epoch TV on November 19, 2024.
🔴 Watch the extended version of this episode: https://ept.ms/Y1119GregScarlatoiu
Greg Scarlatoiu is the new president of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and a longtime expert on the Korean peninsula.
In this episode, he breaks down why North Korea sent troops to fight in Ukraine and talks about North Korea’s long history of involvement in foreign conflicts.
“Putin and Kim Jong Un entered into a mutual defense arrangement. Basically, Kim Jong Un is making a lot of cold hard cash out of the war in Ukraine. He has been exporting millions of artillery shells to Russia. Half of the artillery shells the Russians have fired over the past year have been North Korean artillery shells. The Russian military industrial complex is still having trouble keeping up with the demand of artillery shells on the Ukrainian Front. Now, thanks to the North Koreans, they have been able to out shell the Ukrainians five to one. The Russians have been firing 10,000 artillery shells every day, while the Ukrainians have only fired 2000. They’ve also sold the KN 23 solid fuel ballistic missile to the Russians. It’s been deployed and launched against the Ukrainians.”
CHAPTER TITLES
0:00:01 – North Korean Soldiers in Ukraine
0:06:12 – Financial Gains from the Ukraine Conflict
0:07:52 – Special Forces and Surveillance
0:10:22 – Tunneling Expertise and Middle East Involvement
0:12:08 – Chinese Support and North Korean Economy
0:13:57 – US-North Korea Relations and Diplomatic Efforts
0:19:54 – Human Rights and Security Nexus
0:22:29 – Deterrence and Containment
Greg Scarlatoiu: “Now we’re talking about troops…. These are special forces belonging to the 11th armed Corps, the 11th corps of the KPA, the Korean People’s Army. So under the 11th corps, they have about 100,000 Special Forces. The folks in the 11th Corps are the best trained, best fed, best disciplined, best indoctrinated soldiers that North Korea has. Kim Jong Un is sending his best soldiers to the Ukrainian Front. Why? The bottom line, again, is money. The Russians are paying about $2,000 per month per soldier… They are trained in the use of all accessible small arms. They’re jump trained. They’re trained in martial arts, trained to infiltrate behind enemy lines, go after supply lines, cover the retreat of their own forces, destroy infrastructure, blow up bridges.”
How do North Korean soldiers fit into the Russian army? “Are they able to communicate in Russian? Do they fight as North Korean units, or are they embedded into Russian units? Are they used as Special Forces, as commando units? Are they capable of engaging in combined arms operations, combining artillery, drones and infantry? We don’t have the answers to those questions yet.”
Scarlatoiu about North Korea’s history of sending soldiers into wars around the world:
“They sent pilots to fight alongside the Syrians. In 1967 they flew against Israel in the Six Day War. They took heavy casualties. In 1973 they flew alongside Egyptian pilots again against Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Again, they took casualties in Vietnam. They dispatched North Korean pilots to the Vietnam War to fly missions against us, the United States… As recently as the Syrian civil war, they had special forces fighting alongside Assad’s troops.”
“North Koreans build tunnels for both Hamas in Gaza and for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Why are they so good at tunneling? Because there’s a lot of stuff underground in North Korea. There are a lot of tunnels in underground facilities in North Korea. They’re very good at tunneling. This is one of their specialties, and they have proliferated this tunneling expertise to the Middle East, to the enemies of Israel.”
About North Korea’s relationship with China: “To China, North Korea continues to be a vassal, an ally, a buffer zone between South Korea befriend and ally of the United States and China, and also bargaining chip. There have been ups and downs and the relationship between China and North Korea. China has sometimes been extraordinarily annoyed with North Korea, even nowadays when Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping met in China. Kim Jong Un pledged to consult with China when it came to important strategic decisions. Apparently, he didn’t consult with China prior to launching the so called satellite, and he didn’t consult with China properly prior to providing ammunition, artillery shells, ballistic missiles and even troops to Russia. Now, is this a deal breaker? Absolutely not.”
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