Home Australia About 1,000 ‘elite’ North Korean troops ‘led by Russian officers they don’t understand’ have been slaughtered in just three months fighting Ukraine

About 1,000 ‘elite’ North Korean troops ‘led by Russian officers they don’t understand’ have been slaughtered in just three months fighting Ukraine

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Vladimir Putin chats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un upon Putin's arrival at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, in June 2024.

Western officials say around 1,000 “elite” North Korean troops, supposedly led by Russian officers who “don’t understand,” have been massacred in just three months while fighting against Ukraine.

North Korea sent about 11,000 troops and 4,000 have been killed, wounded, missing or captured.

Officials who spoke anonymously said about 1,000 of them had been killed by mid-January.

The North Korean troops, supposedly belonging to an “elite” unit called the Storm Corps, appear to have been thrown into the war with little training or protection.

Former British Army tank commander Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said they are “barely trained” and led by “Russian officers whom they don’t understand”.

He said the troops “don’t stand a chance and are being used as ‘cannon fodder’.”

These losses are unsustainable for the North Koreans and point to a very high cost for Vladimir Putin’s ally.

He is trying to get rid of Ukrainian forces in Russia ahead of any possible ceasefire negotiations later this year.

Vladimir Putin chats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un upon Putin’s arrival at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, in June 2024.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hugging last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hugging last year.

North Korean troops in eastern Russia receive training ahead of deployment with Vladimir Putin's forces

North Korean troops in eastern Russia receive training ahead of deployment with Vladimir Putin’s forces

North Korean troops in Russia are equipped with military equipment.

North Korean troops in Russia are equipped with military equipment.

It came after Ukraine launched a surprise attack on Russia’s Kursk oblast last August, taking Russian border guards by surprise.

Ukraine still holds several hundred square kilometers of Russian territory and is inflicting huge losses on Putin’s forces.

Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told the bbc that North Korean troops have little chance of survival.

“Frankly, they don’t have a chance. They are thrown into the meat grinder with little chance of survival. They are cannon fodder and Russian officers care even less about them than they do about their own men.

Earlier, Ukraine’s top military commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, warned that North Korean soldiers are posing a major problem for Ukrainian fighters.

He told Ukrainian news program TSN Tyzhden: ‘They are numerous. Another 11,000-12,000 highly motivated and well-prepared soldiers are carrying out offensive actions. They operate based on Soviet tactics. They act in platoons, companies. “They trust their numbers.”

Analysts also said this week that North Korean forces sent to reinforce Putin’s dwindling forces could be killed or wounded in the next three months.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which has been following developments on the front lines of the invasion of Ukraine since it began in February 2022, said in an assessment on January 16 that “the entirety of this contingent North Korean in Kursk Oblast “They can be killed or injured in about 12 weeks.”

In early January, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 3,800 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Kursk so far.

They were first reported to be on the battlefield in early November, and significant fighting occurred beginning in December.

The ISW estimates that the North Korean contingent is suffering losses of around 92 troops per day, and will be completely gone by mid-April if they “continue to suffer similarly high casualty rates in the future.”

Western officials say around 1,000 'elite' North Korean troops reported to have been led by Russian officers who 'don't understand' have been massacred in just three months.

Western officials say around 1,000 ‘elite’ North Korean troops reported to have been led by Russian officers who ‘don’t understand’ have been massacred in just three months.

North Korean troops seen in Russia before deployment

North Korean troops seen in Russia before deployment

The group added: “North Korean forces will likely continue to suffer a higher proportion of combat injuries and deaths, as is typical in armed conflicts, and it is unclear if or when wounded North Korean soldiers return to combat.”

Fighting has intensified in Russia’s Kursk region, with Ukrainian forces eliminating entire columns of tanks and the battlefield littered with the corpses of Russian and North Korean soldiers, chilling images reportedly show.

Desperate to recapture the region, part of which was first captured by kyiv forces in August and has been defended by Ukraine ever since, Putin has sent wave after wave of troops to die.

Ukrainian machine gunners are reportedly so exhausted by the pace at which they have been killing their enemies that they are being replaced periodically.

One soldier compared the attack to the bloody sieges of eastern Ukrainian cities like Bakhmut, saying that “after two hours (the weapons operators) couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Here, the Russians need to take this territory at any cost and they are putting all their forces into it, while we are giving everything we have to hold it,” said Sergeant Oleksandr, 46, a Ukrainian infantry platoon leader. , to the New York Times. Times.

“We are holding on, destroying, destroying, destroying… so much it’s hard to even comprehend.”

Aiming to retake the city of Malaya Loknya, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the region, Putin’s forces reportedly launched a series of massive combined attacks involving some 50 armored vehicles and hundreds of soldiers.

Ukrainian forces reportedly decimated the columns by disabling the leading vehicles with landmines and drone strikes, forcing those behind them to stop dead.

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