What difference do North Korean missiles make in the Ukraine war? | DW News

What difference do North Korean missiles make in the Ukraine war? | DW News

Now Russia has been ramping up its air campaign against Ukraine and launching some of its biggest strikes since the beginning of its fullscale Invasion and the White House says Moscow now has a new weapon North Korean ballistic missiles our information indicates that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea recently provided Russia with

Ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles on this 30th of December 2023 Russian forces launched at least one of these North Korean ballistic missiles into Ukraine this missile appears to have landed in an open field in the zapara region and on January 2nd Russia launched multiple North Korean ballistic missiles into

Ukraine including as part of its overnight aerial attack we’re still assessing the impacts of these additional missiles so what difference is this likely to make let’s go through this with Ben Hodges he’s a retired US liutenant general and a senior adviser with human rights first welcome back to

DW Ben talk us us through what these North Korean missiles are and how they differ from what Russia was using previously well I think there are three important points uh about this story of the North Korean missiles number one it’s a reflection that Russia continues uh to attack civilian targets with

Everything they can whether they’re drones from uh Iran uh now ballistic missiles from North Korea plus their own russian-made weapon and all of these are going after civilian targets apartment buildings medical centers none of these are going after military targets the second part of this that’s I think is no

Worthy is the fact that Russia is having to turn to North Korea and Iran for ammunition um whether it’s artillery ammunition ballistic missiles and that says something about the state of Russia’s defense industry these things can still kill but the fact that Russia is having to go to North Korea and Iran

For weapons I think is an important thing to keep in mind when we assess what is the actual state of the war and Russia’s ability to continue the war the third aspect of this story which I think is Mo the most important is that it’s very clear that China North Korea and

Iran are all supporting Russia and so we the West need to think strategically about how these are all connected uh are we properly organized economically diplomatically as well as militarily to fight the what I would consider the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that are that hate and are

Trying to destroy everything that we say we care about okay we’re going to pick up on on some of those points in a moment first of all how are these new North Korean weapons likely to affect Ukraine’s ability to defend itself well of course um given the volume of North Korean uh ballistic

Missiles drones Russian missiles um the ukrainians are going through an awful lot of the air defense weapons they have received from Germany from the United States and from from other countries I mean there’s there is a an attrition aspect to this as well um Patriot missiles interceptors and other weapons

Are being consumed trying to protect Ukrainian civilians and I I suspect that the addition of the North Korean weapons is intended to add to that volume of TR trying to reduce Ukraine’s ability to defend its its people and its critical infrastructure fortunately so far in the early assessment these North Korean

Weapons appear to be of poor quality just like the artillery ammunition they provided so um we we’ll wait to see exactly what Admiral Kirby just said to to do an assessment of how effective they are right uh and you you talked about um how the the use of these North

Korean weapons uh means that Russia is struggling to produce its own its own weapons but I’ve seen reports that Ukraine’s uh um uh ability uh Ukraine’s mobile air defenses only have ammunition to withstand a few more powerful attacks so between these North Korean missiles and the promises of military that have

Been bogged down in the US and the EU um this does look like this is leaving Ukraine somewhere behind in this yeah this is a real problem and the Russians see this that that’s why they’ adopted this long War approach to to uh use everything they can to wear down uh

Ukrainian defenses because they can see that Germany and the United States in particular are wavering in support and so they’re going to keep doing this approach until either they run out which is not likely or we ReDiscover our strategic backbone and provide Ukraine what is needed now I think one thing

That we could be doing is highlighting the origin the point of origin of all of these different launches and make it clear that we should at least give Ukraine the ability to strike back at the launch sites from which different weapons are coming a lot of these things

Particularly drones come out of Crimea and Russian occupied territory why in the world are Germany refusing to provide tourists and the US refusing refusing to provide a teams and then as far as the weapons that are launched from inside Russia I mean in the UN char every nation is entitled to defend

Itself and I don’t understand why the United States is putting pressure on Ukraine not to strike targets inside Russia good talking to you as ever thanks for joining us retired US leftenant general Ben hoders thank you very much

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made calls for the increased production of mobile missile launchers, according to state media. Meanwhile, the US and UK condemned Pyongyang’s supply of ballistic missiles to Russia.

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