Putin seeks North Korean troops as Russian losses mount
The fact that Vladimir Putin has to ask North Korea for soldiers shows that he either cannot or does not want to replenish the losses at the front himself, according to "FAZ".
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"As is often the case with Putin, one should pay more attention to what he does rather than what he says," writes "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" commentator Nikolas Busse.
In his opinion, if North Korean soldiers do indeed fight in Ukraine or the Kursk region, it contradicts Putin's words when he warned the West at the BRICS summit in Kazan against the illusion that great Russia could be defeated.
"Putin either cannot or does not want to replenish losses at the front by drafting recruits from his own country, so he must ask Kim Jong Un for auxiliary troops."
Mighty Russia?
For both sides, this is a game with an uncertain outcome. "It is not certain that Russian commanders can so ruthlessly exhaust North Korean soldiers as they do their own. It is also difficult to estimate the consequences of possible large human losses for the regime in Pyongyang."
"However, the whole matter does not reflect the great strength of Russia presumed in all the debates conducted in Germany," he adds.
According to the author, this situation also sheds more light on the relations within the BRICS bloc, where Putin wants to be seen as a spiritual leader. China's leader Xi Jinping, "who demanded a political solution for Ukraine in Kazan, will not be pleased that Russia is influencing his Korean backyard and inviting South Korea and the West to take retaliatory actions."
