03 February 2025. Today, there are a lot of interesting updates from the Kursk direction in Russia.
- Screenshot from Reporting From Ukraine’s video.
Here, the North Korean forces, with poor coordination, a crippling language barrier, and complete unpreparedness for modern warfare, their relentless attacks are at risk of collapse, signaling a major setback for Russian plans on this front. Thrown into battle as expendable assault troops, they now face such devastating losses that they have been completely withdrawn from Kursk, with Ukrainian special forces sent in to finish the job.
Tactical failures and poor Integration with Russian forces
Russian commanders had planned to utilize the North Korean soldiers to achieve a breakthrough in the Ukrainian Kursk salient. With Russians running low on manpower, using North Korean soldiers would save their strength for a final push to claim victory for themselves. To achieve this, the North Korean forces were being deployed as the vanguard of each assault, initiating the fight first and forming the primary waves of each assault meant to wear down the Ukrainian defenses.
Reports by Ukrainian soldiers on the ground indicate that, in isolation, North Korean soldiers are quite skilled with weapons after undergoing ten years of military service. Interestingly, new footage of Ukrainian fighters also revealed that North Korean soldiers were armed even better than the Russian soldiers, using new Russian AK-12 assault rifles, thermal image sights, and laser range finders.
However, despite the extensive training and discipline of individual North Korean soldiers, the isolation of North Korea from the outside world prevented their military from adjusting to the reality of modern warfare, leaving them extremely vulnerable as a unit as a whole.
On top of that, even though North Koreans could have been used in small infantry group tactics, the Russian high command has inadequately used them as human waves to frontally assault Ukrainian positions over open fields. Additionally, North Koreans suffered from a lack of cohesion with Russian units due to the language barrier combined with different tactics from Russians, preventing them from receiving adequate fire support from Russian artillery and armored vehicles.
Ukraine exploits North Korean-Russian weaknesses
With North Korean casualties skyrocketing due to these disadvantages, the intensity of their assaults had already significantly decreased, meaning that Ukrainians had to find a clever way to finish the job. Ukrainians did this by deploying special forces units to target positions held by the more poorly trained Russian soldiers to create a gap in the enemy line. With Russians unable to call North Korean reinforcements for assistance due to the language barrier, these preliminary positions could be quickly cleared out by the Ukrainian special forces.
This then allowed the Ukrainians to gain an element of surprise to eliminate the numerically superior North Korean forces by assaulting them from behind, unaware that their flanks, which were held by weaker Russian units, were breached.
NYT: North Korean troops withdrawn from front lines after casualties mount
North Korea prepares reinforcements for a renewed offensive
With severe losses mounting even outside the assaults, the North Korean forces had to halt all offensive and defensive operations in Kursk, pulling back completely to reorganize themselves and set up a new plan. To resolve the issue of a lack of artillery and armored support to aid their assaults, North Korea is deploying its own artillery units in the form of Koksan self-propelled guns and potentially additional heavy equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles as well.
Intelligence reports indicate that such a deployment will be complemented by an additional force of another eleven thousand North Korean soldiers by April, allowing North Koreans to reconstitute their contingent after suffering nearly 40% of their soldiers as irrecoverable casualties.
Overall, the elimination of large amounts of North Korean forces came as a result of poor unit cohesion and a language barrier between Russians and North Koreans, further worsened by a lack of adaptation to modern warfare by North Korean fighters.
With North Koreans pulling out of the Russian Kursk operation, the recent transfers of their own heavy equipment and further reinforcements indicate that North Koreans plan to restart their offensive efforts in Kursk in the future, but this time with adequate support.
However, due to the severity of North Korean losses, this reorganization period will take several months at the least to conduct properly, with any sooner reengagement of forces likely leading to a similar catastrophe as before.
In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Related:
- South Korea’s Intelligence confirms North Korean troops’ withdrawal from Kursk Oblast after heavy losses
- Expert says Russians fail to dislodge Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast as Kyiv troops decimate 30% of North Korean troops
- Frontline report: Russian advance to Kupiansk turns into killing zone under relentless Ukrainian drone strikes
- Frontline report: Russian supply lines collapse near Kupiansk as Ukrainian drones annihilate convoys and armor
- Frontline Report: Ukrainian garrison withdraws from Velyka Novosilka after Russia cuts supply routes
