I wonder how many of these North Korean Soldiers realized they were going to war when they left their country for Russia?:
One of the two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine has claimed during questioning that he thought he was going for training, not to the war against Ukraine, Kyiv’s security service has said.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine has captured two wounded North Korean soldiers in Russia’s western Kursk region and that investigators were questioning them.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it has questioned the two soldiers through Korean interpreters in cooperation with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) as they do not speak Ukrainian, Russian or English
You can read more at the link, but I wish they would not show these guys faces because this is going to lead to retaliation against their family members back in North Korea for them being captured alive.
Here is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about North Korean forces fighting Ukraine in Russia:
The crude stick-figure diagram, sketched in blue ink, details how North Korean soldiers deployed to support Russia in the Ukraine war should respond to the approach of a Ukrainian drone. One soldier—referred to as “bait” in the drawing—should stand still to lure the drone so that a pair of comrades can attempt to shoot it down.
The grisly tactics were divulged in a diary taken off a slain North Korean soldier on Dec. 21, with passages containing mundane details of life at the front, descriptions of combat tactics and expressions of love for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to excerpts recently made public by Ukraine’s special-operations forces. Independent experts say the diary entries appear genuine, with penmanship, word choice and expressions of ideological fervor all common in North Korea.
The young soldier who penned the passage about the drone died in a firefight alongside two other compatriots, according to Ukraine’s special forces.
“Even at the cost of my life, I will carry out the Supreme Commander’s orders without hesitation,” reads one entry from the diary. “I will show the world the bravery and sacrifice of Kim Jong Un’s special forces.”
You can read more at the link, but Ukraine intelligence services are stating there has been up to 4,000 North Korean casualties. They are also reporting that North Korea may be preparing a second deployment of Soldiers to assist Russia. What I found most interesting from the article is that Ukraine has lost half the land they seized in Russia which shows that despite the heavy losses the North Koreans may be having an impact on the battlefield.
N. Korea’s test-firing of new hypersonic missile A new intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead is launched on Jan. 6, 2025, in this photo released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency the following day. North Korea said the missile flew some 1,500 kilometers at a velocity of 12 times the speed of sound the previous day during the testing guided by leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap)
This hypersonic missile is believed to have the range to target the U.S. territory of Guam:
North Korea fired a suspected hypersonic missile into the East Sea on Monday, the South Korean military said, marking its first provocation this year ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch of a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) at about 12 p.m. from the Pyongyang area and it flew some 1,100 kilometers before splashing into the sea.
While the missile’s flight distance fell shorter than the conventional IRBM range of 3,000 to 5,500 km, it is believed to be similar to North Korea’s IRBMs tipped with hypersonic warheads that were launched in January and April last year, a JCS official said. (….)
The latest launch took place as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Seoul for talks on efforts to deter North Korean threats amid political turmoil in South Korea stemming from President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed martial law bid.
When these drones were flown over Pyongyang it was clear this was in response to the North Korean trash balloons that the Yoon administration was struggling to find a response to. If Yoon wanted to provoke a military confrontation with North Korea there would have been better ways of doing so such as sinking a North Korean patrol ship that crossed the NLL this past October:
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff denied allegations that the military scattered anti-communist propaganda leaflets in North Korea to prompt a reaction from Pyongyang, according to a spokesman Thursday. It was “not true” that the South Korean military carried out activities “to induce provocations from the enemy” that were intended to warrant a counter response from Seoul, South Korean army Col. Lee Sung-jun, a Joint Chiefs spokesman, said Thursday at a press conference in Seoul.
South Korean lawmakers from the opposition Democratic Party have accused former President Yoon Suk Yeol of attempting to justify his abrupt martial law declaration last month by directing the military and intelligence agencies to provoke North Korea. North Korea alleged the South sent military drones north of the border to distribute propaganda leaflets in October. One of these drones crashed and was recovered Oct. 13 in Pyongyang, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported six days later.
N. Korea’s art performance celebrating new year North Korean leader Kim Jong-un waves as he attends an art performance ushering in the new year at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang on Dec. 31, 2024, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency the next day. (Yonhap)
As with anything coming from Ukraine I recommend having some skepticism on how true these reports are:
North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s western border with Ukraine are conducting “human wave tactics” on the battlefield, leading to more than 1,000 casualties within their ranks last week, a White House spokesman said recently.
North Korean troops supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are conducting ground assaults in the Kursk region against Ukrainian forces that have led to “heavy casualties,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday during a news conference in Washington, D.C. “It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses,” he said. “These North Korean soldiers appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile.”
You can read more at the link, but you would think there would be drone or other footage of a massive human wave attack that would be shown to prove this claim? Since there isn’t this leads me to believe they are probably rushing Ukrainian positions in small squad sized numbers and this is being called a “human wave” attack.
The North Koreans did get sent to go fight in a war so it should not be a surprise that they have wounded and killed:
This Dec. 16, 2024, screenshot shows a photo from the Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda of what it described to be Russian and North Korean soldiers killed in combat. It has been partially blurred.
The United States has indications that North Korean troops have suffered casualties, including fatalities, during combat alongside Russian forces against Ukraine, Reuters reported Monday, citing a Pentagon spokesperson.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder made the remarks as Kyiv’s intelligence authorities have said that some 200 Russian and North Korean soldiers were estimated to have been killed while fighting in combined units against Ukrainian forces.
“We do assess that North Korean soldiers have engaged in combat in Kursk … we do have indications that they have suffered casualties, both killed and wounded,” Ryder was quoted by Reuters as telling reporters. Kursk is Russia’s western front line.
Via a reader tip comes this news of a North Korean friendly fire incident in Ukraine. It is coming from Ukrainian intelligence so the usual caveats apply in regards to how true this story is:
Russian paramilitary soldiers were accidentally targeted and killed by North Korean troops in a recent bout of friendly fire, according to Ukrainian officials.
In a statement published on Saturday, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) detailed how Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) soldiers have recently assisted Russian troops in the Kursk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian officials estimate that around 11,000 DPRK personnel are stationed in Russia.
“The aggressor state of Russia has begun to use DPRK soldiers in assault operations in the Kursk region, in particular, as part of the combined units of the marines and airborne troops of the Russian Armed Forces,” the statement read.
