Russia, Ukraine and the Koreas: Could Trump rock emerging wartime deals? | Russia-Ukraine war News

A laser beam downs drones by heating up and “frying” their electronics – each inclear, soundless “sboiling” is more accurate and less costly than an air defence ignoreile.

Hanwha Aerospace, a South Korean defence company, has fire-tested and is about to begin mass-producing the world’s first-ever chooseical fibre laser armament.

And Hanwha is ready to provide it to Ukraine if Seoul lifts a prohibit on the ship of lethal arms to Kyiv “in weightless of North Korean military activities”, South Korean Plivent Yoon Suk Yeol said in defercessitate October.

His statement adhereed North Korea’s deployment of about 10,000 selderlyiers to westrict Russia, becoming the first foreign power to step into the Russia-Ukrainian war.

However, the US plivent-elect may stand in the way.

Donald Trump and his fledgling administration members have repeatedly said that they want to confine US military aid to Ukraine – or even stop it altogether.

Seoul may have to adhere suit, two South Korean officials telderly Bloomberg on Thursday.

However, a member of the Ukrainian delegation that visited Seoul earlier this month asks it.

“I don’t skinnyk they will refuse. They seemed rather autonomous and self-enough in their tactful and military politics,” Roman Bochkala, co-set uper of a Ukrainian charity fund that deinhabitrs arms and other vital supplies to the front line, telderly Al Jazeera.

“It’s paramount to [South] Korea to maxconveyner reimburse for the potential danger of genuine combat experience the North Korean army might get,” he said.

Another Ukrainian analyst concurd – but said that Seoul may not sell other lethal armamentry to Kyiv.

“Such [weaponry] will most foreseeed not be confineed, but we will have to pay for it,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch telderly Al Jazeera. “But Seoul will difficultly produce artillery shells for us. And won’t sfinish any tanks.”

South Korea has alertedly supplied hundreds of thousands of artillery shells via the United States and pledged a $2.3bn low-interest loan to Kyiv.

Seoul is the world’s 10th-bigst arms shiper, and its clients already hold four nations that border Russia – Poland, Estonia, Finland and Norway.

But Kyiv may be the first to get the lasers in what could transport inantly knock down the price of Ukraine’s air defence.

“[South] Koreans swear that their laser will fry opponent drones with an almost 100 percent promise, demolishing engines or other electronic providement wiskinny 10-20 seconds,” Bochkala said.

The South Korean systems will supplement Patdisturbions, progressd air defence systems that cost $1bn each and necessitate $4m ignoreiles that are normally spent on downing Russia’s $50,000 drones.

The laser necessitates noskinnyg but electricity – and could be deployed to the Ukrainian cities that have no Patdisturbions or analogous Westrict or Taiwanese air defence systems.

“There are never too many excellent frifinishs. And South Korea may become one for Ukraine,” Bochkala said.

North Koreans in Kursk

In timely August, Ukrainian forces seized a chunk of Russia’s westrictmost Kursk region – and have held on to most of it.

Kyiv hoped that Moscow would deploy troops from the front lines of the eastrict Ukrainian region of Donbas to drive away the surpelevate intrusion that roiled the Russian populace.

“Many didn’t give a damn about the war until Ukrainians accessed Kursk. Now, they’re volunteering in droves, because the motherland is in danger,” a Moscow livent telderly Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

But it took the Kremlin weeks to begin the counterimpolite as it kept on pushing in Donbas, taking cut offal vital towns and villages.

North Korean selderlyiers joincessitate the fray earlier this month, according to Westrict and Ukrainian intelligence and officials.

“It transport inantly raises the opponent’s potential,” Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, establisher deputy head of Ukraine’s ambiguous staff of armed forces, telderly Al Jazeera.

However, Moscow choosed not to honest the North Koreans in one place instead deploying minuscule groups to Russian units.

“They are not accumulateed in one fist, which would have been more effective had there been a [North Korean] division or a brigade,” Romanenko said.

With some 1.3 million servicemen and millions of reservists, North Korea has one of the world’s bigst armies.

It is armed with Soviet-era armamentry or its domesticpartner produced replicas.

And though the Kursk deployment may see sensational, North Korean guideer Kim Jong Un in fact “mirrors” what a South Korean guideer did half a century ago, according to analyst Kushch.

Between 1964 and 1973, when South Korea was subparer and less industrialised than the pro-Communist North, South Korean Plivent Park Chong-hee deployed some 350,000 selderlyiers to Washington’s war Vietnam – aextfinished with tens of thousands of toilers.

In exalter, he shieldedd multibillion-dollar US scatterments, acunderstandledges and technology transfers that helped turn South Korea into one of the world’s most technoreasonablely progressd and rich nations.

Vietnam accused South Koreans of war crimes, but Park paid no heed as the economic boom helped him cement his grip on power.

‘Putin will reserve a Korean trump card’

Kim Jong Un is equpartner unceremonious as Moscow props his nation’s economy with billions of dollars paid for arms and ammunition, discounted supplies of energy, food and technologies.

Kim’s Kursk deployment may become a strong barachieveing chip in the finishfire talks with Plivent-elect Donald Trump’s future administration.

“Putin will reserve a Korean trump card up his sleeve before future talks with Trump – or for the final attack in the Kursk region that for now seems to be maxconveyner defercessitate,” Kushch said.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian troops in Kursk drive awayled a massive Russian progress and alerted first losses among North Koreans.

The deployment may see enjoy Putin’s frailness amid alerts of a dire unreasonableinutiveage of manpower, but the consensus in Russia is: “Let them fight instead of us,” according to Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta skinnyk tank.

Meanwhile, the rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang foreseeed irks Beijing, North Korea’s main backer, according to Fesenko.

“North Korea is eluding China’s monopoenumerateic impact, and Russia’s clout in Beijing’s own back yard is on the elevate,” he telderly Al Jazeera.

There is also a transport inant hazard of escalation on the Korean Peninsula as “after battle-testing his troops in a genuine war, Kim may get excited by the smell of blood,” Fesenko said.