This is a fact that Russia and North Korea will hardly be able to hide much longer. While North Korean soldiers sent to Russia to defend the Kursk region continue to confront the Ukrainian army, the regimes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un continue to deny any involvement of troops from Pyongyang in the conflict. However, losses are piling up: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that nearly 3,800 of them had been killed or injured in recent weeks, while South Korean intelligence estimates Pyongyang’s losses at 300 dead and 2 700 injured.
But beyond defending its positions, or even continuing to break through the front line on Russian soil, one of Ukraine’s major objectives in recent weeks was to gather as much irrefutable evidence of the presence of northern soldiers as possible. -Koreans in the conflict. With a clear objective: the capture of prisoners. An arduous task, as the North Korean soldiers refused to capitulate, and were encouraged to commit suicide or finish off their wounded comrades rather than be captured. “Generally, the Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded and do everything to erase the evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war against Ukraine,” said Volodymyr Zelensky. on January 11th.
This difficulty arises from a key element in the participation of North Korean forces in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: the very great ideologization of these soldiers, the majority ready to sacrifice their lives for what they consider to be a just cause. As a form of support for his troops, Kim Jong-un sent them a New Year’s message, found on North Korean soldiers, testifying to the motivational levers activated by the North Korean dictatorship, as reported by Washington Post. “You have known heartbreaking sacrifices and the joys of costly victories, many noble combat experiences, the priceless feeling of true camaraderie and patriotism, all so far from the motherland. I don’t even know how to find the words to encourage you and express my gratitude for your dedication and tireless efforts, I really miss you, comrades”, we can read in particular in the letter.
Another notebook found on a soldier was filled with North Korean patriotic songs, with lyrics such as “my destiny is always shared with the motherland.” Several Ukrainian soldiers testified to the Washington Post the great tenacity of Pyongyang’s troops, despite the significant losses inflicted.
Soldiers who did not know they had been sent to the front
Despite these difficulties, the Ukrainian army managed to capture two North Korean soldiers around ten days ago, and their interrogations revealed important information. And in particular the fact that one of them thought he had been “sent for training”, but that he had “realized upon his arrival in Russia that he had been deployed” on the front, recounted the NIS, the South Korean intelligence service, also involved in the interrogations. In discussions translated and cited by AFP, one of the men said he wanted to return to North Korea – where his fate would be more than uncertain, while his country refuses to officially declare its involvement in the conflict and encourages all his soldiers to commit suicide rather than be captured by the enemy -. The other said he would do what he was told, but if he had the chance, he would prefer to live in Ukraine.
Statements by a South Korean MP, Lee Seong-kweun, citing his country’s intelligence service, also qualify the version of soldiers engaged solely by their ideology. According to him, memos recovered from corpses reveal that the North Korean regime is using soldiers’ “hopes to join the Workers’ Party”, in power in North Korea, or “to benefit from an amnesty”, in order to sending them into battle, suggesting that some might be prisoners at home.
Better equipment for the North Koreans than the Russians?
However, North Korean soldiers remain relatively well equipped on the front. Ukrainian special forces were thus able to show journalists Washington Post a list of equipment recovered in recent weeks from North Korean soldiers, including bulletproof vests, first aid kits or guides for making tourniquets, military ID cards, shovels, knives and modern Russian assault rifles. Enough to make Vlad, one of the soldiers of this Ukrainian unit who recovered this equipment, say that the Russian army seems to follow a “best for the guest” mentality in the confrontation against the forces of kyiv. “The Russians were much less well equipped. They tried to impress the North Koreans,” he added.
However, this equipment remains largely insufficient for soldiers to be prepared for such a confrontation. Ukrainian soldiers were particularly surprised at the first appearances of North Korean troops, who moved in large groups and did not even try to hide from Ukrainian drones, suffering very heavy losses.
In full “adaptation” to the front
But Pyongyang’s soldiers seem to be learning quickly. While kyiv’s forces say they have seen them on the front much less in recent weeks, the latest confrontations have shown that they have more recently proven to be much more ready for combat. Viktor, a Ukrainian special forces commander who had a direct confrontation with North Korean troops in mid-December, explained to the Washington Post how the latter were in full “adaptation” to the battlefield. “They’re trying to get smarter, not crowd into one place like a flock of sheep,” he said.
Several North Korean documents seized by Ukrainian forces in Kursk confirm this, with notes and feedback on combat experience and mistakes made on the front. “In modern warfare, where real-time reconnaissance and drone strikes are conducted, failure to disperse combat teams into smaller units of two or three members could result in significant casualties from drones and air strikes. “artillery of the enemy”, we can read in one of them.
Another document states that some North Korean troops had significant difficulties at the front because they were not informed of “crucial details such as enemy strongholds, drone launch sites or artillery positions, and therefore entered the battlefield unprepared. Rather than the North Korean troops, the greatest responsibility for the Russian failure to reconquer the Kursk region would perhaps be placed more on the forces of Moscow, incapable of using to their advantage this mass of soldiers supposed in principle be able to undermine the Ukrainian defense lines.