North Koreans are fighting for Putin as the Russian economy threatens to collapse

On Friday, South Korean intelligence said it worked with Ukrainian counterparts in using facial recognition AI technology to identify North Korean officers in Ukraine's Donetsk region who helped Russian troops fire North Korean artillery.

“The direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, which foreign media have reported, has now been officially confirmed,” the intelligence agency said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Moscow and Pyongyang denied any troop exchanges.

But analysts are increasingly pointing to the underlying weakness of Russia's economy, which appears strengthened by huge defense spending, and predict the country will struggle to sustain its war against Ukraine.

In addition to Western sanctions that have largely shut Moscow out of the global financial system, Russia has suffered a massive brain drain of talent fleeing the country and hundreds of thousands of war casualties.

This has contributed to a tight labor market and high inflation as the defense industry and military mobilization make up a larger share of the working-age population – preventing President Vladimir Putin from raising more troops for his war.

In a comment for The hill On Monday, Alexander J. Motyl, a political science professor at Rutgers University-Newark, predicted that the Russian economy would suffer a “meltdown” next year.

“As the Russian economy collapses, immiseration and social discontent increase, and money dries up, Putin will run out of resources to fuel his war machine,” he wrote.

That could mean the end of his regime and possibly even the Russian state, Motyl added, pointing to other examples in history of countries that did not have enough economic resources to continue fighting wars.

An economic collapse would undermine Russia's military and war efforts, he said, leaving Putin with two options. The former is unlikely, as it would require Putin to demand more sacrifice from society as a whole. The second is to “push his armies past the point of exhaustion in the hope that a miracle will occur,” but this will only delay his defeat and eventual downfall as leader.

Likewise, Stefan Hedlund, professor of Russian studies at Uppsala University, wrote an analysis for Geopolitical Intelligence Services on Monday in which he also pointed to the distortions in the economy caused by the war and defense spending.

“Large amounts of money are being poured into the employment of Russian soldiers, many of whom are killed in Ukraine, and into the production of military equipment, much of which is destroyed on the battlefield,” he said. “None of these outputs can be justified in the long term.”

Meanwhile, non-defense companies face increasing labor shortages, rising costs and the prospect of even higher interest rates as Russia's central bank tries to curb inflation, Hedlund added.

Furthermore, exports of oil, gas and arms – traditionally the regime's main sources of revenue – are now under severe pressure as prices and demand weaken.

The likely outcome is that Russia's economy will come under enormous stress and face a bleak future, Hedlund predicted. And as Moscow turns to North Korea for troops, its economy may begin to look more like that of its ally.

“Even if Moscow manages to maintain some exports, ongoing sanctions will deny Russian producers access to vital intermediate goods and prevent them from interacting within global value chains,” he wrote. “Prolonged isolation from the developed parts of the global economy will amount to a step toward North Korea’s self-sufficiency.”