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

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

Moscow and Pyongyang have denied any troop exchange.

But analysts increasingly point to the underlying weakness of Russia’s economy, which appears stronger due to massive defense spending, and predict the country will struggle to continue 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 victims.

That has contributed to a tight labor market and high inflation, as the defense industry and military mobilization consume a larger share of the working-age population – posing obstacles to President Vladimir Putin’s ability to raise more troops before his war.

In an op-ed for The hill On Monday, Alexander J. Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark, predicted that the Russian economy will undergo a “meltdown” next year.

“As Russia’s economy slumps, impoverishment and social discontent grow, 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 sufficient economic resources to continue fighting wars.

An economic collapse will undermine Russia’s military and war efforts, he said, leaving Putin with two choices. The former is unlikely, because it would require Putin to ask wider society for more sacrifices. The second is to “push his armies past the point of exhaustion in the hope that some miracle will occur,” but that will only delay his defeat and potential ouster as leader.

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

“Large amounts of money are being channeled into contracting Russian soldiers, many of whom will be killed in Ukraine, and into producing military equipment, much of which will be destroyed on the battlefield,” he said. “None of these results can be justified in the long term.”

Meanwhile, companies outside the defense sector are facing worsening labor shortages, rising costs and the prospect of even higher interest rates as Russia’s central bank tries to rein in inflation, Hedlund added.

In addition, exports of oil, gas and weapons – traditionally the regime’s main sources of income – are now under severe pressure as prices and demand weaken.

The likely outcome is that the Russian economy will come under enormous pressure and face a bleak future, Hedlund predicted. And as Moscow turns to North Korea for troops, its economy could become more like that of its ally.

“Even if Moscow manages to maintain some exports, continued sanctions will deny Russian producers access to essential intermediate goods, preventing them from interacting within global value chains,” he wrote. “Prolonged isolation from the developed parts of the global economy will amount to a move toward North Korean autarchy.”