Missile event in Kharkiv, Vovchansk area, Ukraine on Tue 30th July 2024

In mid-June, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin traveled to Pyongyang to meet North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un and sign a defense pact between Russia and North Korea.

Six weeks later, an apparent North Korean missile vehicle appeared near the front line in southern Russia, just across the border with Ukraine.

It seems the closer military ties between Russia and North Korea are finally having a real impact on the fighting. If North Korea really is providing armored vehicles to Russia, it might help solve one of Russia’s biggest battlefield problems as its wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its 29th month: a shortage of purpose-made combat vehicles.

On or just before Tuesday, a Ukrainian drone spotted something strange near Vovchansk, the main battleground in Russia’s two-month-old offensive in northern Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast. On close inspection, the odd object appeared to be a Bulsae-4—a six-wheeled, missile-armed tank destroyer.

The vehicle “managed to launch six rockets before leaving,” Ukrainian drone operator Kriegsforscher reported.

The Bulsae-4 is uniquely North Korean. It borrows the chassis of a North Korean version of the Russian BTR-80 armored personnel carrier—and adds a bulky top turret with eight anti-tank guided missiles, each likely weighing tens of pounds and ranging several miles.

A Bulsae-4 performs the same mission that Ukraine and Russia’s dismounted anti-tank missile teams perform—defeating enemy tanks—but does it with greater speed, mobility and protection.

For the Russians, the Bulsae-4 meets a growing need. The Russian army went to war in Ukraine in February 2022 with probably several hundred Shturm and Kornet tank destroyers—and quickly lost around 50 of them to Ukrainian action. Lately, the missile-armed vehicles have been a rare sight along the front line, perhaps because there simply aren’t many left.

We don’t know the details of Russia’s June security pact with North Korea. But it’s possible, even likely, that the terms include significant transfers of North Korean-made vehicles.

From the Russian perspective, it would make sense. It’s no secret the Russians are struggling to build—or recover from long-term storage—enough combat vehicles to make good the roughly 600 vehicles they lose in Ukraine every month.

If the Russian military is getting North Korean vehicles, they may include other types in addition to the Bulsae-4. The Russians are especially hurting for modern tanks and armored personnel carriers, so don’t be shocked to eventually see ex-Korean Pokpung-ho tanks and M2010 APCs on the Russian side of the front line in Ukraine. It might help that the M2010 and Bulsae-4 have the same chassis.

The big question is what South Korea will do. Earlier in the wider war, North Korea and South Korea both supported their respective sides—but quietly. The authoritarian North sold artillery shells and ballistic missiles to authoritarian Russia; the democratic South sold shells to the United States for onward transfer to democratic Ukraine.

Now that North Korea is openly supporting the Russian war effort, South Korea may consider doing the same for Ukraine. Shortly after Putin and Kim signed their security pact, South Korean national security adviser Chang Ho-jin criticized the pact—and said his government would rethink its existing ban on providing weapons to Ukraine.

It’s worth noting that South Korea builds some of the best weapons in the world—and in larger numbers than almost any other country, likely including North Korea.

“I hope that S.K. will respond,” Kriegsforscher wrote.