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Around 50 North Korean soldiers were killed in a battle against Ukrainian army drones in the Kursk region this week, video of the battle shared on social media revealed.
It’s the latest evidence that North Korean forces are participating in Russia’s war with Ukraine, a fact that Moscow and Pyongyang are trying to hide, including by allegedly burning the faces off of North Koreans who are killed in action.
The video, shared by Ukraine’s 8th Special Operations Regiment on Facebook, showed a drone attack in the battle fought on Monday.
In the video, what are believed to be North Korean soldiers are seen running away or hiding behind trees when they encounter Ukrainian first-person-view drones, also known as FPV drones.
Sgt. Mykhailo Makaruk, a member of the Ukrainian unit confirmed to RFA Korean that he had fought against North Koreans in the battle captured on video.
“I think nearly 200 (North Korean soldiers) came to our position,” Makaruk said, explaining that shortly after, the drones began an aerial attack.
He likened the North Koreans to zombies, a staple of horror films.
“They came and they came and the drones are bombing them,” he said. “I don’t understand how they can come to this war. They look like, you know, real zombies.”
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Makaruk did not disclose the exact location where the battle was fought because his unit is still deployed in a combat situation.
RFA has not verified the authenticity of the video.
Makaruk said that the North Korean soldiers involved in the battle moved alongside Russian troops, and that mid-level North Korean officers were among them.
He said the North Korean soldiers were equipped with Russian military supplies and used outdated tactics typical of the Soviet military in the 1950s.
They were totally unprepared to fight against drones, and they appear to think they can avoid detection while on the ground or under cover of night, Makaruk said.
These FPV drones are said to be able to reach speeds of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour, meaning that if they encounter each other within 100 meters, it will take less than a second for them to collide.
Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, posted on on his Telegram account that North Korean soldiers were no match for the drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.
“The dead DPRK soldiers did not have a visual understanding of the danger from UAVs before the drone strikes, which may indicate that the Russians poorly informed the Koreans about the use of drones at the front,” Kovalenko said.
He also said that the Russian soldiers were seen trying to quickly recover the bodies of North Korean soldiers who died on the front lines, which was different from the way they recovered Russian casualties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday in an address that preliminary data suggests that the Russians were trying to hide the deaths of North Korean soldiers.
“Unfortunately, we are forced to defend against them as well, even though there is not a single reason for North Koreans to die in this war,” Zelensky said. “The only reason is Putin’s madness, which has consumed Russia and fuels this war.”
Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong.