North Korean Troops Reportedly Attacking In Kursk With "Noticeable" Losses

North Korean troops are reportedly participating in mass infantry assaults around Kursk oblast, apparently without much armor or artillery support.

The question is whether they will have any greater success than Russian forces, whose advances have been largely ineffective. JL

David Axe reports in Forbes:

North Korean infantry have begun conducting mass assaults along the 250-square-mile salient in Kursk Oblast. “The Russians are including them in consolidated units." Dismounted infantry attacked in columns across open fields without apparent support from vehicles, artillery or aircraft. "Losses are already noticeable,”  so bodies may show up soon. North Korean troops and vehicles could deploy elsewhere along the 800-mile front line to patch up other battered Russian field armies. Russian losses have spiked—exceeding 2,000 killed and wounded a day - far more troops than the Kremlin can replace.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, North Korean infantry have begun conducting mass assaults along the 250-square-mile salient Ukrainian troops carved out of Russia’s Kursk Oblast back in August.

 

“Today, there is already preliminary data that the Russians have begun to use soldiers from North Korea in assaults—a significant number,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“The Russians are including them in consolidated units and using them in operations in the Kursk region,” Zelensky aded. “So far, only there.”

A video has circulated online depicting what some Ukrainian observers claimed is a largely or entirely North Korean assault. The footage, apparently shot by a Ukrainian drone, shows dismounted infantry attacking in columns across an open field without much apparent support from vehicles, artillery or aircraft.

It’s difficult to confirm the troops in the video are actually North Korean, the Estonian analyst WarTranslated warned. “As I’ve maintained before, until verifiable evidence, such as a video of a captured N.K. soldier, is presented, it’s premature to confirm their involvement,” WarTranslated stressed, “though I trust the assessment of Ukrainians on this.”

Visual evidence of dead North Koreans could also confirm the claim. “Losses in this category are also already noticeable,” Zelensky claimed, so bodies may show up soon.

North Korean support has become vital to the Russian war effort in Ukraine as the war grinds toward its fourth year and Russian losses deepen.

In the months since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to recapture Kursk from a strong Ukrainian force while also sustaining their assault on the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, daily Russian losses have spiked—and have exceeded 2,000 killed and wounded on some recent days.

That’s far more troops than the Kremlin can replace in a single day, meaning the roughly 12,000 North Korean troops—apparently belonging to Pyongyang’s 12th Army Corps—are so important. They help make up the gap between Russian losses and Russian recruitment.

The North Koreans have also sent vehicles and munitions—Bulsae-4 missile launchers, M1989 howitzers, M1991 rocket launchers, KN-23 ballistic missiles and millions of artillery shells—to bolster the Russian invasion. North Korean staff officers have deployed, and may even have come under fire from Ukrainian cruise missiles.

So far, the North Korean reinforcements appear to be concentrated in and around Kursk, which is Putin’s main preoccupation as the January inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump looms, potentially signaling a chaotic new political era for U.S.-Ukrainian-Russian relations.

But North Korean troops and vehicles could deploy elsewhere along the 800-mile front line to patch up other battered Russian field armies. “We have information that they may be used in other parts of the front,” Zelensky claimed.