Fighting alongside Russia, North Koreans wage their own war

The North Korean soldiers fighting for Moscow in Russia’s Kursk region are assigned their own patches of land to assault. Unlike their Russian counterparts, they advance with almost no armoured vehicles in support.

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 US officials say. Instead, they move under heavy fire across fields strewed with mines, in waves 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.

Russian soldiers at an artillery position in the Kursk region, in Russia, in December.Credit: Nanna Heitmann/The New York Times

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.

Sent to Russia to join with Moscow’s troops in Kursk, the North Koreans essentially operate as a separate fighting force, the Ukrainian soldiers and US officials said – distinct in language, training and military culture.

“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, who until Donald Trump’s second inauguration day was the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for international security affairs.

The North Koreans are largely special operations troops trained for surgical strike missions, she said, but the Russians have basically used them as foot soldiers.

Trenches dug to stop any potential further advance by Ukrainian forces, in Kursk, Russia.Credit: Nanna Heitmann/The New York Times

Last year, North Korea sent about 11,000 soldiers to aid Moscow’s forces in the Kursk region of southern Russia, where the Ukrainians captured territory with a surprise invasion mid-year. Since their first combat engagement in early December, roughly one-third of the North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded, Ukrainian and US officials said.

General Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said this week that North Korean losses continued to climb, estimating that almost half of those sent had been either injured or killed, but he warned that they were “highly motivated, well-trained” and “brave”.

Reinforcements are expected “within the next two months,” according to one senior US defence official.

The New York Times spoke to a dozen Ukrainian soldiers and commanders who are engaged in direct combat with North Korean soldiers, as well as four US defence officials and military analysts, to put together a portrait of how the North Koreans operate on the battlefield. The Times also viewed video of North Korean assaults provided by the Ukrainian military.

Ukrainian military vehicles close to the border with Russia’s Kursk region this month.Credit: Finbarr O’Reilly/The New York Times

The US officials requested anonymity to speak frankly about battlefield details. Ukrainian soldiers and their commanders asked to be identified only by their first names in accordance with military protocol.

With 1.2 million troops, North Korea’s military ranks among the world’s largest standing armies, and its entry into the war was a profound escalation in a war now approaching its fourth year.

Even before it sent troops to Russia, North Korea was a major supporter of Russia’s war effort. It has sent Moscow millions of artillery shells – which now account for about half of the Russian munitions fired daily – and more than 100 short-range ballistic missiles, according to Western and Ukrainian intelligence officials.

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.

Ukrainian 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. Ukrainian claims about attempts to hide North Korean participation could not be independently verified.

While North Korean soldiers provide additional manpower, the Russians have struggled to integrate them into the battlefield.

The difficulties have ranged from minor issues, like finding uniforms small enough to fit North Korean soldiers, to communication problems that have led at least twice to North Korean and Russian forces clashing directly because of mistaken identity, US officials and Ukrainian soldiers said.

The Russians are taking steps to address the issues, Ukrainian soldiers said, but have yet to form a more cohesive fighting force.

“Now they’ve started composing groups that include a translator or someone who speaks Russian with a radio, but these groups are not very effective,” said Andrii, the Ukrainian commander.

Using video from a drone camera, Andrii described an assault soon after it happened earlier this month, offering a window into North Korean tactics.

“It feels like they specifically came here to die, and they know it themselves.”

Olesksii, a Ukrainian platoon commander

Viewed through thermal imaging, the North Korean soldiers stood out as small dark specks on the snow-dusted fields. They walked some 8 kilometres – with many killed along the way – and were massing in a tree line for an assault on a Ukrainian trench a short-distance away.

“There are about 50 of them here,” Andrii said.

Some were wounded, the video showed, but they did not retreat. They waited for reinforcements and then attacked. Assault groups were made up of five to eight soldiers.

The North Koreans take many casualties, Andrii said, but keep sending new units.

“It’s just forward, forward,” he said. “It’s motivation, orders and strict discipline.”

The “shock brigade” tactic of soldiers advancing with little concern for the mayhem that awaits them is heavily featured in North Korean military training and propaganda. Adopted from the Korean War days, the strategy has caused many casualties in a war fought over open and flat lands with drones, according to South Korean intelligence officials. But they said the North would consider those losses a necessary cost of becoming more skilled in modern warfare.

“It feels like they specifically came here to die, and they know it themselves,” said Oleksii, a platoon commander.

Ukrainian intelligence officials said two North Korean soldiers captured on January 9 were also providing insights into the deployments in Kursk. And Ukrainian Special Operations Forces have released excerpts from a number of diaries and communications collected from the bodies of North Korean soldiers, which US officials said appeared authentic.

In one diary, a North Korean soldier wrote that he was motivated to join Russia’s fight to redeem himself from an unspecified transgression.

“I wear the uniform of the revolution to protect the Supreme Commander,” he wrote. “I betrayed the Party that trusted me and committed ungrateful acts against the Supreme Commander. The sins I have committed are unforgivable, but my homeland has given me a path to redemption, a new start in life.”

He also included practical details, like how to shoot down a drone.

“Simultaneously, the one baiting the drone keeps a distance of 7 metres, while those shooting stay 10-12 metres away. If the bait stands still, the drone will also stop moving. At this moment, the shooter eliminates the drone.”

The North Korean tactics have forced the Ukrainians to adapt.

For instance, drone pilots said they generally did not target individual North Koreans, hunting for groups instead.

And given the density of North Korean assaults, the standard procedure of placing anti-personnel mines about 15 metres apart does not work well. Now, soldiers said, they were trying to leave no more than 5 metres between mines.

Interestingly, Ukrainian soldiers said, the North Koreans try to remove their dead and wounded from the battlefield, which is different from the Russians.

Andrii shared drone video of the process, with some dead and wounded soldiers being dragged out – pulled by their arms or loaded on sleds – as others moved into the position.

The North Korean forces deployed to Ukraine included about 500 officers and at least three generals, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.

The generals are posted at Russian command and control headquarters, US defence officials said, and that is where the objectives are decided.

The commanders decide when they need artillery and how long to wait before ground forces manoeuvre, a senior US defence official said. They synchronise with the troops in the field so that the troops are not talking to their Russian counterparts, to reduce miscommunication.

Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Kursk said the North Korean tactics were costly but effective.

“The Koreans are starting to push the front lines, targeting less defended areas and wearing out our troops that way,” said Oleksii, the platoon commander.

Fighting one of the world’s largest armies was hard enough, he said, but fighting two was “on the edge” of what was possible.

Capturing prisoners has proved challenging because North Koreans have been trained not to be taken alive, soldiers said, and Russian drone operators were always watching.

“If Russians see Koreans being captured, they use drones to finish them off – killing both the Koreans and our soldiers,” Oleksii said, adding that some in his brigade were recently killed this way.

Ukrainian soldiers said the North Koreans should not be underestimated.

“They are being tested, really tested,” said Andrii, the drone commander. They did not have combat experience, he said, but “now they are here, gaining it, and they are becoming very strong.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.