North Koreans are ‘disciplined’, armed with high-quality ammo, says Ukraine

Despite a push by the United States to end Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces appear set for another hurdle almost three years into the conflict.

South Korea claims that North Korea intends to send more soldiers to Ukraine in response to Russian forces.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, which has recently captured several North Korean soldiers, says overall, its new enemies are learning on the battlefield, becoming increasingly disciplined.

It is believed that follow-up measures and preparations for additional deployment are being accelerated due to theoccurrence of numerous casualties and prisoners of war, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff in a statement they made public on Friday. “With about four months since North Korea’s deployment to the Russia-Ukraine  war, it has passed.

On January 2, the Ukraine’s military intelligence (GUR) discovered that new North Korean troops had been shifted to combat positions in response to losses.

The GUR estimated North Korea has so far sent about 11, 000 soldiers to fight in Russia’s region of Kursk, where Ukraine has staged a counter-invasion to distract Russian troops.

Apparently, that force arrived in Kursk on November 4 and reportedly fought back with force ten days later.

Since then, Ukraine says it has inflicted high casualties, but at a slowing rate, as North Koreans learn and adapt.

In their first 40 days in the field, Ukraine said North Koreans suffered 3, 000 casualties, or 75 a day, while in the following 20 days they suffered another 1, 000 casualties, or 50 a day.

The toll was not independently verified by Al Jazeera. However, Western officials recently concurred with these Ukrainian figures.

“I think there’s no reason why]North Korea] should not keep sending in battle casualty replacements and not to expand the North Korean force”, said Keir Giles, Russia and Eurasia expert at Chatham House, a UK-based think tank.

If all the forecasts are accurate, then North Korea still blatantly needs the workforce, and Russia still clearly needs it. Why, then, wouldn’t this force serve as a prelude to a much bigger deployment? he told Al Jazeera.

Grim orders

Russia has been adamant about North Korean soldiers’ presence, leaving only Ukraine and its Western allies as reliable sources of information regarding their alleged military behavior.

Kyiv has suggested in recent weeks that there are bleak orders preventing alive-trauma from being executed and suicides.

In an ostensible attempt to conceal their ethnicity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel last month that the Russians are also trying to “literally burn the faces of the killed North Korean soldiers.”

In December he wrote, “their own people are executing them”.

According to the Ukrainian army, the bodies of the murdered North Koreans were discovered carrying documents that falsely identified them as Russians.

Giles suggested that there might be a factor in Russian pride.

“]Russian leaders] don’t want this to become an issue within Russia itself because it undermines the myth that Russia does not need allies, that it is a superpower… that it is perfectly capable of winning wars on its own”, said Giles.

Additionally, Ukrainian soldiers and officials assert that the country’s leaders instructed North Koreans to commit suicide rather than to give up.

On January 9 and 11, Zelenskyy decorated the 95th Air Assault Brigade’s paratroopers who had taken the first two North Korean POWs.

Previously, wounded North Koreans are understood to have tried to lure their captors into a deathtrap, detonating a grenade as Ukrainians approached.

After rebuffing an assault, Ukrainian paratroopers discovered a third North Korean POW on Monday.

In their opinion, he tried to kill himself.

He accelerated and struck his head on the pillar as the [van that would transport him] approached. On January 21, the parachutes reported that he hit it very hard and suffocated.

The fact that they only have three prisoners, in Giles’ opinion, indicates that steps are being taken to ensure that North Koreans don’t end up in jail.

One prisoner, a reconnaissance sniper, said he was told he was on a training mission, according to Kyiv.

North Korea’s benefits

North Korea’s involvement in Ukraine comes with benefits.

The isolated state has a history of sending mercenaries to conflicts in Africa and Vietnam for state revenue, but it hasn’t been in combat since the Korean War ended in 1953.

Last October, expert Olena Guseinova, a lecturer at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, estimated North Korea could realistically send up to 20, 000 soldiers to Ukraine based on economic interests, in a research paper for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

She estimated that North Korea’s weapons were worth $5 billion. Apparently, ballistic missiles from North Korea have been intercepting Ukraine since September.

“Kim Jong-un could potentially accumulate between $143m and $572m in additional annual revenue if he were to commit between 5, 000 and 20, 000 personnel to support Russia’s war effort”, Guseinova wrote.

“Kim Jong Un might be able to send up to 100 000 troops to Ukraine given the military’s overall capacity,” he said. Realistically, however, the likelihood of such a commitment seems improbable”, she said, because of concerns about exposing North Koreans to outside influences.

In the summer of 2023, Pyongyang began to provide Russia with nine million artillery shells, according to South Korean intelligence.

North Korea has been given ballistic missile technology and assistance with satellite launch, in addition to a defense pact with Russia.

Free oil, allegedly sent by train to North Korea, is used to pay for these goods and services.

The most notable change in relations occurred on June 19 of last year when Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement, which he characterized as “mutual assistance in the event of aggression.”

Ukrainian units captured aerial footage of North Koreans aimlessly shooting at the drones that had killed them with grenades in the early stages of the engagement.

The high casualties were attributed to a “lack of understanding of contemporary warfare,” according to Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.

However, Ukrainian units recently admitted that their North Korean foes were disciplined and tough fighters who led Russian assaults.

“They go first. If successful, the Russian troops go to consolidate and take up defence”, said Petro Gaidashchuk of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade operating in Kursk.

“The Koreans are more disciplined. When they are attacked, they don’t panic as much. He said at a telethon on January 17 that if one or more wounded members of their assault group don’t run away. Despite the fact that there are explosions and shooting all around, they continue the assault and try to pull the wounded away.

According to him, this has sparked resentment among the Russians who controlled the units.

The 8th Special Operations Regiment in Kursk claimed that the enemy “in a coordinated manner” invaded the battlefield after defeating a North Korean assault on January 18.

Gaidashchuk claimed that Russia had denied its own men access to training and equipment.

In contrast to the Russian contract soldiers, Gaidashchuk said, “The Russians are very unhappy with the fact that the North Koreans are better equipped, fed, and given more time for training.”

The Special Operations Forces of Ukraine earlier this year posted excerpts from a notebook they claimed to have found on a dead North Korean military special forces officer, Gyong Hong Jong.

Every battalion in our armed forces must achieve the goal of “to be not a battalion that only accepts obligations in words but a battalion that knows how to act and fight right away after receiving an order,” Jong wrote. “To be a battalion that can perfectly perform any task even at the cost of death. This is the spirit of this congress,”

North Korean troops ‘ had very high-quality ammunition’: Ukraine

On Christmas Eve, Oleg Chaus, a Ukrainian sergeant with the 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade in Kursk, claimed that three units, including North Koreans, attacked on December 24 in an organized manner and with air support, compared to Russian assaults that were “chaotic” and “disorganized.”

“All the servicemen of these three groups had very high-quality ammunition. Each of them had disposable grenade launchers, they had night vision devices, they had small assault backpacks with them”, he said.

These reports contrast with descriptions of Russian soldiers’ erratic tasks.

Ukrainian forces in Toretsk observed a new Russian strategy this month: using soldiers to launch ammo to a forward position, dump it, and retreat.

They called such runners “camels”. These fighters had a short life expectancy, according to Ukrainian soldiers.

A soldier occasionally engages in assault without the aid of a soldier, according to Maksym Belousov, a spokesman for the 60th Mechanized Inhulets Brigade in a nearby Lyman town.

“His task is to be a ‘ live target ‘ to detect our positions. A trained fighter follows him to find out where the shooting is occurring and where our forces are located.

Do Ukraine’s allies have to ask themselves whether additional North Korean forces require their involvement with boots on the ground as well?

Almost a year ago, French President Emmanuel Macron first raised the possibility. The threat of nuclear attacks followed Puntin’s response.

If Ukraine and Russia agreed to end a ceasefire, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on January 18 that Germany could send a peacekeeping force to secure a demilitarized zone.

“We’re the largest NATO partner in Europe. We’ll obviously have a role to play”, he told Suddeutsche Zeitung.

“No one can pretend this is a conflict confined to one theatre”, said Giles. “It’s global. There’s a destabilising influence in multiple theatres. That strengthens the hand of]the Russian] coalition to challenge the West globally”.

Source: Aljazeera