North Korea has deployed roughly 15,000 troops to the Russia-Ukraine front and treats the conflict as a proving ground for training, weapons testing, and doctrinal experimentation - mirroring how Mussolini's Italy used the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. According to a new study from the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), about 3,000 North Korean veterans have already returned home to serve as military instructors.
Defense scholar Iskander Rehman, the report's author, argues that North Korea's mercurial dictator Kim Jong-un "clearly views the world's most vicious proxy war as a rare opportunity to train and harden his troops," "Hvylya" reports, citing the HCSS report.
North Korean forces were initially tasked with straightforward human-wave assaults on Ukrainian positions. Their operational mandate has since widened as they gained combat experience through Russian-provided training. North Korean troops now engage in tasks ranging from demining and cross-border rocket strikes to artillery operations and reconnaissance drone missions, the study found.
Pyongyang has also drawn broader technological lessons. The report notes that North Korea is investing heavily in the mass production of small tactical UAVs and loitering munitions - capabilities refined through direct observation of the Ukrainian battlefield. South Korean defense experts have expressed mounting concern over the long-term ramifications, as the high-intensity conflict offers battlefield learning that North Korea could not easily obtain elsewhere.
The HCSS study draws a direct parallel to fascist Italy, which sent over 80,000 soldiers to Spain during the Civil War. Unlike Nazi Germany, which systematically extracted lessons and refined its combined-arms doctrine, Italy's military establishment proved resistant to learning - exhibiting what one historian called "a systematic incapacity for realistic self-assessment." Rehman argues the question for Western planners is whether North Korea more closely resembles Germany's disciplined learning or Italy's ideologically driven adventurism.
"Hvylya" earlier reported on how Ukrainian drones have created a kill zone where armored vehicles can no longer operate.