Why a fresh wave of North Korean soldiers may fight in Russia's war in Ukraine

BBCAn enemy that swarmed the battlefield in large groups while under fire, seemingly oblivious to the dangers of drones and fire from automatic weapons. An elite corps of ghost soldiers who chose suicide over surrender. They fought and died in their thousands, then apparently vanished from the battlefield.North Korea's soldiers were sent to fight by Pyongyang alongside Russian forces as they sought to repel a Ukrainian offensive on Moscow's territory at the end of 2024. They paid a heavy price, with as many as 3 000 killed in action from the 13 000 deployed.Ultimately, they would adapt their tactics and, with Russia, would drive Ukrainian forces from its Kursk region. In combat terms, little has been heard of them since, but according to Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, North Korean forces and their weaponry are soon to make a dramatic return to Russia's war in Ukraine.Last month, Zelensky warned that up to 50 000 North Koreans will be deployed in Russia, revising an earlier estimate of 30 000 troops. He called on South Korea to provide support for his country's air defence.But why, after such heavy losses, would North Korea send more men to fight for Russia, and what happened to its soldiers sent in the first place?"They're still there", said Dr Yang Uk, research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Centre for Foreign Policy and National Security in Seoul. "They are defending Russian territory for another counterattack from Ukraine. And we believe that some of the engineer corps or workers might be in [the Russian-occupied] Donbas area, but that's not the combat troops."The Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Ministry of Defence, HUR, estimates that 8 500 North Korean servicemen are still on Russian territory. They are organised into four brigades that operate as part of the "North" Group of Forces and are assigned to protect the Russian Federation's state border in the Kursk Region from Ukrainian incursions."They do not participate in active combat operations. Units of the Korean People's Army have not been observed in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine," HUR said in a statement to the BBC.A first for North KoreaFor North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, the Kursk deployment was a gamble, its largest combat force ever sent overseas. (In 1973, North Korea sent 1 500 military personnel and instructors to Egypt during the Yom Kippur War with Israel, and in the late 1960s, an estimated 87 North Korean pilots fought for the North Vietnamese against US forces).Despite the bloodshed, it was a gamble that paid off, reaping countless benefits for the isolated and impoverished country and transforming both its economic and military fortunes. And one that could serve as a blueprint for even deeper military cooperation.North Koreans, "now know what modern combat is about", said Yang.The soldiers sent to fight in Russia were from Storm Corps, the elite of the North Korean armed forces. Extremely isolated, totalitarian North Korea is a militarised and heavily indoctrinated state.At first, neither Russia nor North Korea even acknowledged their presence. Ukrainian forces first clashed with them in November 2024, and the first live North Korean prisoners of war wouldn't be captured until January of the following year.Russia didn't acknowledge their role until April 2025, when Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, described their "heroism" on the battlefield.Yang continued, "North Korean soldiers are very brave, I mean, especially those of Storm Corps. They are willing to die for their country. But the problem is that passion doesn't mean efficient combat skills... [They suffered] a lot of bloodshed in the early stage of the Kursk campaign, but they learned the lessons of modern drone warfare.""Cannon fodder" is how "Sultan", a soldier with Ukraine's 95th Air Assault Brigade, described North Korean troops. He faced them in the battle for Kursk at the end of 2024."They would begin with one large assault group, then another 15–20 men would be sent into the same position, and then more after that. The North Koreans operated differently. They kept moving all the time. That gave them a certain advantage, but not a decisive one," he recalled recently in Kyiv.Communication between them and their Russian allies appeared poor, he said, and their soldiers were inadequately equipped.After combat, Sultan and his men would search enemy corpses for documents and intelligence information. On the Russian dead, they would find personal belongings, identification and equipment. "But when we searched the North Koreans specifically, the only thing we found on them was simply ammo. We checked absolutely all the small pockets - there were no documents, nothing at all," he explained.Other Ukrainian soldiers reported the North Koreans lacked body armour, winter clothing and helmets.In one chilling video from a Ukrainian assault, a wounded North Korean soldier lies prone on the snow-covered ground in a wooded area. As the Ukrainians approach, he detonates a grenade under his chin, after calling out, with his last words, the name of his leader, Kim Jong Un.In April 2025, at a memorial service in Pyongyang at the newly created Museum of Foreign Military Operations, Kim praised heroes who choose suicide over capture.In a speech to relatives, with Russia's Defence Minister Andrey Belousov in attendance, he said they were "heroes who unhesitatingly opted for self-blasting, suicide attack, in order to defend the great honour".While North Korea has never officially acknowledged the death toll from the Kursk operation, a BBC Korea analysis of the memorial site estimated that 2 300 soldiers were killed fighting for Russia.Ukraine's intelligence arm, HUR, puts the figure at 3 000 killed and 1 500 injured.But aside from the combat experience, why did North Korea sacrifice so many of its best troops in a foreign war?"Whenever things got difficult under isolation, North Korea would reach out first toward South Korea, Japan, or especially the US to try to normalise relations, that was the pattern of Korean Peninsula diplomacy. But now that ties with Russia have tightened, Kim Jong Un argues that the world is in a new Cold War, a multipolar system."The arrangement with Russia, which began as economic and military expediency, appears to be developing into something deeper and longer-term.

Why a fresh wave of North Korean soldiers may fight in Russia's war in Ukraine

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Namibian Sun 2026-09-15

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Why a fresh wave of North Korean soldiers may fight in Russia's war in Ukraine

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Namibian Sun 2026-09-15

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