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North Korean Troops Take Pounding In Kursk As Kim Reportedly Doubles Down

If North Korea’s elite troops were expecting an easy campaign against Ukrainian forces entrenched in Russia’s Kursk region, they faced a harsh reality on the ground.

About 1,100 North Korean special forces have been killed or injured in Russia since entering the fray against Ukraine a few weeks ago, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported on December 19. A general was reportedly among those killed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on December 23 put the figure even higher, at more than 3,000, or about a quarter of the North Korean special forces sent to Russia, though he couched his statement by saying the data was preliminary. RFE/RL could not confirm either of the reported numbers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, though, doesn’t seem to be fazed by the rapid losses. The authoritarian leader is reportedly doubling down in his support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in exchange for critical supplies of oil, cash, and military technology.

Zelenskiy said on December 23 that North Korea may send more troops and weapons to the front. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff seconded that forecast, saying Pyongyang is preparing to rotate or supply additional forces to Russia.

North Korean military support is coming at a critical time in the war. Russia is seeking to overpower an undermanned and under-resourced Ukrainian infantry and gain territory before its own manpower and resources become constrained.

Russia has lost more than 600,000 soldiers in the nearly three-year war, the Pentagon said in early October. It has burned through so much war material that it is struggling to replace its artillery and missile needs amid sweeping Western sanctions.

Now nearly two-thirds of the mortars and shells Russia launches at Ukraine come from North Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian Army officer. And every third ballistic missile was made in North Korea, Ukrainian officials said.

Pyongyang is ramping up arms production to meet Russia’s growing need, experts said.

Trench Warfare

Russian troops are now gaining ground in Ukraine’s east at the fastest pace since the start of the war. Kyiv carried out a surprise incursion into the Kursk region in August, seizing a swath of Russian territory in the hope of drawing enemy forces away from eastern Ukraine. That hasn’t materialized, thanks in part to the supply of North Korean troops.

The arrival of the North Korean troops in Russia in October was initially seen as an act of desperation on the part of Putin, who has had to significantly bump up salaries to attract new recruits.

However, The New York Times reported on December 23, citing U.S. officials, that it was North Korea who approached Russia with the offer of troops and Putin accepted. It is unclear when Kim made the offer.

Putin traveled to Pyongyang to meet Kim in June. During the summit, the two leaders agreed on a strategic treaty that includes a mutual defense provision. Putin signed the treaty into law in November.

The supply of troops to Russia can help Kim evade sweeping sanctions on technology and materials for military use. North Korea was hit with international sanctions after conducting its first nuclear test in 2006.

Pyongyang hasn’t been engaged in a hot war in decades. Thus, its miliary brass and troops – which number more than 1 million — have no combat experience. The deployment in Russia’s war with Ukraine is a way for Kim and his military to acquire some.

However, Kim’s troops are ill-prepared for the type of trench warfare with widespread use of drones and missiles they are facing in Kursk, experts say.

Hyunseung Lee, a North Korean who spent 3 1/2 years with an artillery and reconnaissance battalion in the early 2000s before defecting, told RFE/RL last month that Kim’s troops “don’t really train with that equipment.”

He said they cannot master drones and the high-tech equipment in such a short period of time.

Videos circulating on social media show Ukrainian kamikaze drones striking and killing North Korean soldiers in Kursk’s snow-covered fields.

Commenting on the videos in a December 19 tweet, Lee called it a “sad predictable outcome.”

Modern warfare technology is not the only issue leading to large-scale deaths of North Koreans, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The Washington-based research firm said North Korean soldiers were struggling to communicate and coordinate with Russian forces due to language barriers.

Perhaps more importantly, North Koreans are now conducting the initial attack in open territory on Ukrainian positions, ISW said. Some military experts cynically call such fighting tactics “meat assaults” because they result in a large loss of life among the attackers.

Yevhen Yerin, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence service, told the AFP news agency on December 24 that Russia’s use of North Korean troops has not had a major impact on the battlefield.

“It is not such a significant number of personnel,” he said, adding that they use tactics that are “primitive, linked, frankly speaking, more to the times of the Second World War.”

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