Ukrainian Drones Hunting Down North Korean Anti-Tank Vehicles In Kursk

In addition to infantry, the North Koreans are reinforcing Russia's dwindling supply of armored vehicles. But Ukrainian drone teams are finding that they make excellent targets, especially as well placed FPV drone strikes on the top of the Korean anti-tank missile carriers cause the top-mounted launchers to explode when they are loaded. 

Russian loss rates of men and armor are being described as 'catastrophic' so the targeting of new North Korean vehicles is a severe blow to Russian capabilities. JL

David Axe reports in Forbes:

Four months after the first North Korean anti-tank missile vehicles showed up along the front, Ukrainian drone operators have hunted them down. Blasts cook off some of the eight anti-tank missiles the Bulsae-4 carried in its top-mounted launcher, confirming strikes on the growing number of fire-support vehicles North Korea has deployed to the front line of the Russia-Ukraine war alongside thousands of North Korean infantry. Catastrophic casualties have robbed Russian brigades of momentum. The record casualties exceed the Kremlin’s capacity to recruit, train and deploy fresh troops and build, or restore from long-term storage, replacement armored vehicles.

Four months after the first North Korean anti-tank missile vehicles showed up along the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, Ukrainian drone operators have hunted down one of the vehicles.

 

The six-wheeled Bulsae-4 was motoring down a road somewhere in Kharkiv Oblast in northeastern Ukraine when a first-person-view drone from the Vitrolom drone group—part of the Ukrainian army’s 3rd Assault Brigade—chased it down.

The blast, observed by a second Ukrainian drone, seemingly cooked off some of the eight anti-tank missiles the Bulsae-4 carried in its top-mounted launcher. The Vitrolom group claimed the North Korean vehicle was knocked out of action. “We destroy the enemy every day!” the group crowed.

It’s the first confirmed strike on one of the growing number of fire-support vehicles North Korea has deployed to the front line of the Russia-Ukraine war alongside thousands of North Korean infantry. In addition to an unspecified number of Bulsae-4s, the North Koreans have also sent dozens of M1989 howitzers and M1991 rocket launchers.

North Korean reinforcements are indispensable to the Russian war effort. Hurling assault group after assault group at Ukrainian positions in a desperate effort to take, or retake, as much territory as possible before the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump potentially upends the politics of the wider war in late January, the Russians have been losing between 1,200 and 2,000 troops and up to a hundred vehicles every day for months.

 

The record casualties exceed the Kremlin’s capacity to recruit, train and deploy fresh troops and build, or restore from long-term storage, replacement armored vehicles. Total Russian losses after 33 months of hard fighting might exceed 730,000 killed and wounded troops and 15,000 pieces of destroyed, damaged, abandoned and captured heavy equipment. Ukrainian losses are much lighter.

A Russian offensive that kicked off in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region in late 2023—and a smaller offensive that, since October, has targeted the 250-square-mile salient Ukrainian troops occupy in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast—has resulted in steady but small gains for the Russians.

But catastrophic casualties have robbed Russian regiments and brigades of momentum. “Russian forces will eventually make operationally significant gains if Ukrainian forces do not stop ongoing Russian offensive operations,” the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. concluded, “but the Russian military cannot sustain such loss rates indefinitely, especially not for such limited gains.”

Without those thousands of North Korean troops and dozens of howitzers and launchers, the Russian war effort would be even more fragile than it already is. That’s why the first Ukrainian strike on a North Korean vehicle in Ukraine is such a big deal.

To defeat the twin offensives in the Donbas and Kursk, the Ukrainians not only have to keep attriting Russian forces—they also have to start attriting North Korean forces, too.

That campaign has just begun.