World | Europe | Security Filed: 7 March 2016, 17:44 EST
CHINA, NORTH KOREA DEPLOYING FORCES IN SUPPORT OF SOVIET UKRAINE OPERATION, NATO CONFIRMS; BEIJING SAYS PRESENCE IS ‘TECHNICAL’
BRUSSELS, March 7 (Reuters) — NATO confirmed Monday that forces from China and North Korea have been deployed in eastern Ukraine in support of Soviet military operations, marking the most significant expansion of outside involvement in the twenty-two month conflict and drawing immediate condemnation from Western governments who called the development a dangerous escalation by an emerging authoritarian coalition.
The confirmation, delivered by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference in Brussels, followed days of mounting evidence from satellite imagery, battlefield intercepts, and accounts from Ukrainian military commanders of unfamiliar equipment and personnel operating alongside Soviet forces in the Donbas and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“We can confirm the presence of Chinese military personnel and North Korean artillery and infantry units operating in active support of Soviet forces on Ukrainian territory,” Stoltenberg said. “This is an unacceptable escalation. The unprovoked interference of authoritarian states in a sovereign European nation’s struggle for self-determination is a threat not only to Ukraine but to the rules-based international order.”
He did not take questions on what specific measures NATO intended to take in response.
BEIJING CALLS PRESENCE ‘TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE’
China’s Foreign Ministry, in a brief statement issued in Beijing shortly before the NATO press conference, acknowledged the presence of Chinese personnel in Ukraine while rejecting characterisations of their role as combat deployment.
“A small number of Chinese engineering and technical specialists are present in eastern Ukraine at the invitation of relevant parties to provide technical assistance of a non-combat nature,” ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said. “China’s position on the Ukraine situation has been consistent: we support dialogue, we support a negotiated solution, and we oppose the unilateral expansion of military alliances that created the conditions for this conflict.”
The final clause of the statement — “the unilateral expansion of military alliances that created the conditions for this conflict” — was notable for its directness and was not addressed by Western officials in subsequent briefings.
Western defence officials, speaking on background, said the characterisation of Chinese involvement as “technical” was not consistent with what allied intelligence had observed on the ground. “These are not engineers,” one senior NATO official said. “We know what engineers look like. This is something else.”
The official declined to be more specific.
NORTH KOREA DOES NOT COMMENT
The government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea issued no statement. North Korean state media, monitored by South Korean and American agencies, made no reference to the deployment.
South Korean officials confirmed through their own intelligence assessments that multiple North Korean artillery brigades — equipped with modernised self-propelled howitzer systems understood to incorporate Soviet-assisted upgrades — had been observed in forward positions near Mariupol. Additional North Korean infantry units, estimated by South Korean defence ministry analysts at between 8,000 and 12,000 personnel, were assessed to be operating in rear support and reserve roles.
“North Korea is using this conflict as a live-fire exercise,” a senior South Korean defence official said at a separate briefing in Seoul. “They are testing modernised equipment, testing doctrine, testing their soldiers against western-trained and western-equipped adversaries. Every week they are in Ukraine, they learn something.”
Asked what the implications were for the Korean peninsula, the official paused for a long moment. “That is the correct question,” he said, and moved to the next.
KYIV DEMANDS RESPONSE
Ukrainian President Mykhailo Kovalenko, speaking from Kyiv in an address broadcast on national television, called the Chinese and North Korean deployments “an act of aggression against the Ukrainian people and against Europe” and demanded an immediate NATO response that he said must include direct military intervention.
“Ukraine is fighting not only for itself,” Kovalenko said. “It is fighting for every free nation. The communist powers have united against us. The free world must unite with us — not with statements, not with summits, not with another package of sanctions — but with soldiers, with aircraft, with the full weight of the alliance.”
NATO members have to date provided Ukraine with financial assistance, weapons, ammunition, intelligence sharing, and training. Direct military intervention — the deployment of NATO forces to Ukrainian territory — has been rejected by alliance members, with the United States and Germany consistently citing escalation risk.
In Washington, the White House issued a statement condemning the Chinese and North Korean deployments as “a reckless decision that will prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people and destabilize the broader European security architecture.” The statement pledged an acceleration of weapons deliveries to Kyiv and announced a new package of sanctions targeting Chinese defence industry entities identified as supplying materiel to Soviet forces.
Asked at a briefing whether the administration was reconsidering the question of direct military intervention given the changed composition of forces now opposing Ukraine, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration’s position “remains unchanged” and that “all options are on the table.”
He was then asked which options had been removed from the table.
He moved to the next question.
THE COALITION TAKING SHAPE
The developments of the past week have brought into sharper relief a coalition that Western analysts have watched coalesce with mounting concern since late 2015 — an alignment of states that have, each for their own reasons, concluded that the Soviet position in Ukraine is their position too.
Iran’s drone technology, first observed in Soviet operational deployment in significant numbers last autumn, has measurably extended Soviet ISR and strike capability. Chinese logistical and technical support — now confirmed to include a physical military presence — has addressed strains in Soviet supply chains that Western officials had assessed as a significant vulnerability. North Korean artillery munitions, flowing through back channels since at least mid-2015, have eased pressure on Soviet ammunition stocks that were assessed to be running low.
“They are not running low anymore,” one Western defence official said flatly.
The coalition has taken shape without a formal treaty, without a joint command structure, without a name. Each member maintains its own stated rationale: the Soviets are defending Russian-speaking populations in eastern Ukraine; the Chinese are providing technical cooperation to a partner; the North Koreans are not commenting; the Iranians are selling equipment on commercial terms to a buyer who happens to be at war.
What the coalition shares is a common adversary and a common reading of what is at stake. China, in particular, has made no secret in its state media of the view that the Ukraine conflict is a template — that what the West attempted in Kyiv in 2014 is the same playbook that will be attempted elsewhere if it succeeds.
“The forces currently opposing Ukraine in the east represent something new in European security,” said François Heisbourg, a French strategic analyst, speaking by phone from Paris. “Not a formal alliance. Something more opportunistic and more durable. States that have concluded their interests converge, and are acting on that conclusion. The question for the West is whether it understood this early enough to respond to it effectively.”
He did not answer the question directly.
A NOTE ON FUNDING
Monday’s confirmation of Chinese and North Korean involvement came amid a separate, lower-profile controversy in Kyiv: opposition figures in the Ukrainian parliament have called for an independent audit of defence expenditure after discrepancies emerged between reported frontline ammunition stocks and the quantities logged as received from Western donors over the past eighteen months. The Ukrainian government dismissed the calls as “Soviet-aligned political interference” and said existing audit mechanisms were sufficient.
The story received limited coverage in the Western press.
Conor Sheehan reported from Brussels. Darya Marchenko reported from Kyiv. Additional reporting by James Whitfield, Warsaw, and Liu Fang, Beijing. Editing by Patricia Sandoval.
© Reuters 2016. All rights reserved.
Related sources: AP: NATO Allies Fail to Unify on Response (9 March 2016) | NYT: Ukraine’s President Flees (February 2014) | KAN News: Baram Interview — Soviet-Iranian Deal (September 2015) | Dror Eilon, The Reactor and the Missile, Ch. 4 (2017) | Xinhua: China Announces Tiangong Orbital Station (2017) | Soviet Union | Ukraine | Iran | China