If North Korean volunteers with their artillery systems, wealth of experience with counter battery warfare and large caliber multiple rocket systems, made in North Korea, want to participate in the conflict, well let’s give the green light to their volunteer impulse.

Col. Igor Korotchenko
Editor-in-Chief
National Defense Journal

Speaking on Rossiya 1 Television, Col. Igor Korotchenko said that North Korea had offered Russia 100,000 “volunteer” troops to fight in Ukraine. “Pyongyang will be able to transfer its tactical units to Donbas,” he added, describing the North Korean troops as “Resilient and undemanding”; but more important, he said they were “motivated.” What was most curious was the communist phraseology used by Korotchenko to describe this offer of troops from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un: “If North Korea expresses a desire to meet its international duty to fight against Ukrainian fascism, we should let them.”^[i]

According to a Soviet textbook, written by Kharis Sabirov in 1987, we are living in the “period of transition from capitalism to socialism” where socialism is “the first phase of the communist formation….”[ii] The text further explained, “Socialism, which is the negation of capitalism, means a revolutionary restructuring of all spheres of bourgeois society on the principles of scientific communism.” This can only be done in the course of a relentless struggle by stamping out the sources of [bourgeois] might….”[iii] The founder of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, said that revolutionary socialism was international in character. After World War II, the followers of Lenin asserted that the communist parties of all countries have an international duty to unite and assist one another. In doing this, they were following Lenin’s lead. According to Sabirov, Lenin “upheld the principle of internationalism….” In this context, communist North Korea does not simply fight for the national interests of North Korea or of Russia. North Korea is duty-bound to the other socialist countries.

Korotchenko’s allusion to North Korea’s “international duty” is therefore a clue from on high. As he is Putin’s toady, he would never say anything to displease his boss. He would never use Leninist terminology unless that terminology was approved at the highest levels. The obliteration of the Ukrainian state, he has affirmed, is “absolutely healthy.” Why is it healthy? Because it signifies the restoration of the Soviet Union. In past appearances on Russian state TV channel Rossiya 1, Korotchenko outlined an optimistic scenario for “capturing the Baltic countries.”[iv] What possible reason could Russia have for invading three independent NATO countries? What possible reason does Russia have for invading and destroying the country of Ukraine?