Last fall, approximately 11,000 North Korean troops were airlifted into Russia and put into the forward line in an attempt to dislodge about 10,000 Ukrainian troops who had secured a tenuous foothold after a surprise attack in the Russian province of Kursk.
They had no armor, so they fought with what they brought to Russia. In the first week of fighting, the North Koreans discovered that they were not engaged in a joint military operation, and the Russian forces did not respect or consider them.
This description of North Korean tactics is from U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence.
When they attack, they do not pause to regroup or retreat, as the Russians often do when they start taking heavy losses, Ukrainian soldiers and American officials say. Instead, they move under heavy fire across fields strewed with mines and will send in a wave of 40 or more troops.
If they seize a position, they do not try to secure it. They leave that to Russian reinforcements while they drop back and prepare for another assault.
They have also developed singular tactics and habits. When combating a drone, the North Koreans send out one soldier as a lure so others can shoot it down. If they are gravely wounded, they have been instructed to detonate a grenade to avoid being captured alive, holding it under the neck with one hand on the pin as Ukrainian soldiers approach.
“It’s partly two different militaries that have never trained or operated together and partly, I think, Russian military culture, which is, shall we say, not highly respectful of the abilities and norms and operations of partner forces,” said Celeste A. Wallander, the former assistant secretary for international security affairs under Joe Biden.
The Pentagon puts North Korean losses at 1,000 dead and about 3,000 injured. The Ukrainian military says that North Korea has lost about half its troops.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say that North Korea would lose all of the troops it sent to Kursk in a matter of months if the combat loss rate continued.
Russia's arrogance is costing both armies.
"Russia and DPRK forces are almost certainly experiencing interoperability difficulties. The two forces do not share a common language and DPRK troops almost certainly have difficulties integrating into Russia's command-and-control structure," reports ISW.
Russia is pretending that North Korean troops aren't engaged in combat.
The Kremlin has denied deploying North Korean soldiers to the battlefield and is taking steps to hide their involvement, officials said.
For instance, the North Koreans have been issued what one Pentagon official described as “pocket litter” — documents that register them as being from Russia’s Far East.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that one of the captured soldiers was found to have a military ID in the name of a resident of Tuva, southern Siberia. The fake identity used data from a real Russian citizen, Ukrainian intelligence officials said.
Russia doesn't care if the rest of the world knows that it's lying. The lie is a fig leaf allowing other nations to ignore the escalation.
Not since the Iran-Iraq War 45 years ago has there been such disregard for the lives of ordinary soldiers. Iran's "human wave" attacks during "Operation Ramadan" in 1982 using young boys and unarmed or poorly armed Basij volunteers cost the Iranians 80,000 killed, 200,000 wounded, and 45,000 made prisoners of war.
Fortunately for the North Koreans, Putin will end the war fairly soon. It won't be soon enough for the North Koreans, who are cementing their alliance with Russia using the dead bodies of their soldiers.
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