November 13, 2025: Russia called on North Korea, an ally since the end of World War II in 1945, to help the Russian war effort in Ukraine. In addition to supplying about 40 percent of the artillery shells used by the Russians in Ukraine, North Korea also provided missiles and rockets

To encourage enthusiastic support, Russia offered cash, and help with North Koreas weapons development programs. Russia also received the services of 12,000 North Korean soldiers and several thousand support personnel. Russia paid the North Korean government thousands of dollars for each soldier. The government kept most of that money, as is the custom when North Koreans work in Russia, which they have been doing for decades. But enough of that cash went to the soldiers or their families to significantly improve their living standards. The soldiers were declared national heroes and those that died had their families receive additional payments.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un now has an army possibly containing thousands of combat veterans, men who learned how to survive the terrifying, at first, presence of thousands of drones. Every war generates unexpected weapons, techniques and tactics. In the Ukraine War, the unexpected development was the emergence of cheap, armed drones as a decisive weapon that replaced most air and artillery support while also causing about 70 percent of the casualties. Ukraine built 1.5 million drones in 2024 and in 2025 over 2.5 million drones were produced, most of them in at least thirty hidden factories. Drones were an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles in Ukraine are fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces are sending in quadcopter drones controlled by soldiers using FPV/First Person Viewing goggles to see what the day/night video camera on the drone can see. Most FPV drones carry half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. This is an awesome and debilitating weapon when used in large numbers over the combat zone.

Several FPV operators, each with two or more assistants, usually operate from a bunker or a partially rebuilt basement of a bombed out structure. Antenna for broadcasting drone control signals and receiving FPV video are placed in a camouflaged location some distance from the operations bunker. Both sides have missiles and bombs that can home in on the source of FPV drone control signals. Most operations teams have an alternate antenna ready to go if the one in use is destroyed.

These FPV drones are able to complete their missions most of the time, whether it is a one-way attack or a reconnaissance and surveillance mission. The recon missions are usually survivable and enable the drone to be reused. All these drones are constantly performing surveillance, which means that both sides commit enough drones to maintain constant surveillance over a portion of the front line to a depth into enemy territory of at least a few kilometers. This massive use of FPV-armed drones has revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides are producing as many as they can.

Russia passed on the knowledge of drone warfare to North Korea, assuring them that this would be more valuable in any future war. For decades the northerners have threatened to attack South Korea. The southerners never took this threat seriously, until now. The northerners have drones. South Korea does not have drones and is currently paralyzed with shock and indecision at the prospect of dealing with a drone equipped, combat experienced North Korea army moving south.

North Korea obtained all this and more by aiding the Russian war in Ukraine. North Korea supplied artillery and lots of 152mm and 122mm shells to feed the guns. The North Koreas took advantage of Russian desperation and sold them older munitions. Some of those shells were past their use-by date and unreliable. The Russians were desperate and didn’t bother to check for this. That was a costly mistake because their artillerymen found that many of the shells did not work and some exploded when fired. This destroyed the gun and sometimes killed or injured some of the artillerymen.

It got worse when the Ukrainians began using drones for surveillance and attacks on any targets within ten, and then twenty, kilometers of the front line. Twenty kilometers was critical. This meant the Russian towed guns could not get close enough to the front to be effective. Kept twenty kilometers behind the troops, the 122mm artillery was useless because it only had a range of about fifteen kilometers. The 152mm could hit targets 25 kilometers but when moved closer than 20 kilometers from the front, the guns were subject to drone attacks. Eventually new drones with a range of 40 kilometers appeared and Russian artillery became target practice for the Ukrainian drones.

By then North Korea was providing newly manufactured shells for Russian guns that could not get close enough to the front to be useful. North Korea also provided ballistic missiles and troops, so the Russians took the good with the bad and soldiered on.

South Korea believes they will have worse problems with their antagonistic and suddenly more deadly northern neighbor.