By mid-April, every soldier from North Korea fighting for Russia against Ukraine will likely either be dead or wounded. That assessment is not coming from Ukrainian intelligence but from the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.
North Korea started sending troops to Ukraine sometime in the fall of last year — about 12,000 in total — and the overwhelming majority were sent to Russia’s Kursk region. That’s where Ukraine launched an incursion to seize Russian territory.
The first contact Ukraine reported with North Korean soldiers was in November, but North Korean troop involvement ticked up significantly in December. Since then, the ISW thinks the North Koreans have lost an average of 92 troops per day.
The North Koreans are being used largely in meat-wave style attacks where the assaulting force hopes to overpower Ukrainian defenders through sheer numbers. It’s a tactic that always results in a high casualty rate.
But Ukraine says the North Koreans show an unwavering, almost fanatical commitment to fight, even in the face of certain death. Only two North Korean soldiers have been captured since the fighting began, and that lack of North Korean POWs could be linked to other North Korean tactics, like ordering soldiers to kill themselves rather than be taken captive.
Despite the heavy losses, the North Koreans are gaining battlefield experience and learning how to fight in a modern war. This is something South Korea and the U.S. are watching closely, because if the North’s soldiers bring their battlefield experience home and teach their countrymen, that could lead to more hostility and violence on the Korean Peninsula.
Of course, enough North Koreans need to survive long enough to make it back home in order to share their knowledge, and it’s not clear if Kim Jong Un is planning to send more soldiers to fight for Russia.
In the meantime, though, the Kim regime is benefiting heavily in other ways. In exchange for supplying Moscow with soldiers and ammunition, Pyongyang is getting Russian military equipment and technology.
Reuters contributed to this report.
