Ukraine

Currently a big advance by Russians and Ukraine are struggling to hold them back, extra meat for the grinder will help the Russians

^^Thanks for the insight there. <Thumbs up.>

Let’s see what happens with the additional troops from NK. When the first NK PoWs turn up then things will have changed

There have been NK engineer troops in this conflict for some time now, along with NK artillery rounds and missiles, but this isn’t being given to Russia for free. If Ukraine is whipped up into a fury by talk of an operationally insignificant number of “Special Forces” and launches an attack on their training camps then NK might take it personally. This can only help the Russian cause and lower the costs to them and the strain on the Russian economy

SKorea has stayed out of this directly because internal policy dictates that it doesn’t get involved in ongoing wars. Their President doesn’t have the support to over-turn that policy, but factor in NK troops getting front-line experience and that support could be forth-coming.

SKorea already supplies Poland with armoured vehicle expertise (the Polish Krab has a SKorean chassis) and has supplied Poland and others (but not Ukraine directly) with additional materiel.

Bringing SKorea directly in would be a mistake for Russia, so let’s see where the NK troops end up

It does feel like it’s a slow moving train wreck leading to (a conventional / non nuclear) WW3.

RustyNissanPrairie
Full Member
It does feel like it’s a slow moving train wreck leading to (a conventional / non nuclear) WW3.

Handled correctly it could lead to a more stable world. A diminished Putin and renewed confidence within Western style democracies

However. Trump.

One potentially worrying thing recently for global stability and proliferation post conflict. Ukraine have intimated that if they aren’t given the security of NATO membership or something closely approximating it, then they will pursue the development of nuclear weapons to protect against future Russian aggression. Because of their civil nuclear programme and sophisticated engineering and defence industries they could likely do it in very short order.

Whilst it will wind Putin up immensely, a much better option would be to give Ukraine a proper article 5 style guarantee immediately after any ceasefire. Far better than the further proliferation of nukes.  Especially as that would break a taboo and encourage Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and who knows else to do it because of their own security fears.  It’s lose/lose for Russia – Ukraine will end up being either a NATO member or become a nuclear power.  Much like Finland and Sweden joining NATO, a shit ton of unforeseen negative consequences for Russia of Putin’s attempted land grab.