TAIPEI, Taiwan – Russian soldiers captured by Ukraine “expressed concerns” about the superior combat readiness of allied North Korean troops compared with Russian contract soldiers in the Kursk region, said a senior Ukrainian officer.
As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to support its war against Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk, according to Ukraine and the United States – although neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has acknowledged this.
Last year, Kyiv said its forces had captured more than 700 Russian troops during operations in Kursk.
“Interestingly, the Russian captives report that the equipment, armament, and training of North Korean soldiers were significantly better than that of the Russian contract soldiers,” said Petro Haidashchuk, a senior sergeant at Ukraine’s 80th Independent Air Assault Brigade, during an interview with Ukrainian broadcaster Espresso TV on Thursday.
Russian contractors typically comprise former military personnel, including retired servicemen aged between 35 and 55, according to media reports. Recruitment efforts have expanded to include various demographics. They operate in a legal gray area, with their numbers and combat readiness varying.
Haidashchuk’s remarks stand in contrast to media reports suggesting that North Korean soldiers were battling with deteriorating supplies and outdated weaponry.
Mykhailo Makaruk of Ukraine’s 8th Special Operations Regiment told Radio Free Asia in December, after searching through uniforms of North Korean soldiers who had been killed in Kursk, that the soldiers had no military food in their bags, but only some low quality grenades as well as poor military medicine kits.
Separately, Haidashchuk explained that the captured Russians said they had no contact with the North Koreans as they were kept separate at training bases.
“Firstly, due to the language barrier. Secondly, the North Koreans live, eat, and conduct their activities completely separately from the Russian occupiers. They have no joint operations, except for combat,” he said.
“The North Koreans’ task, according to the captured occupiers, was exclusively assault operations, while the Russians were meant to secure the positions in case of success,” he added.
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‘Expendables’
South Korea’s top envoy to the United Nations said Thursday that North Korean troops were being treated as “expendables” and as a “cynical” means of sustaining the North Korean regime.
“The testimonies of two North Korean soldiers, recently captured by Ukraine’s military in the Kursk region, clearly demonstrate that the North Korean troops are engaged in combat and being dissipated as expendables,” ambassador Hwang Joon-kook said during a U.N. Security Council meeting.
Citing Seoul’s estimate of 12,000 North Korean troops dispatched to Russia, with more than 300 were killed with about 2,700 injured, Hwang said the large number of North Korean casualties was due to what he called “inhumane” tactics on the front lines.
“According to the reports, they were even crossing land mine fields in a single column, 3 to 4 meters apart, like human mine detectors without cover or mine-clearing vehicles,” Hwang said.
Hwang was referring to a report published by British daily The Times, which cited a Ukrainian military official as saying that North Korean soldiers sent to Russia were being used as “human mine detectors.”
Hwang also said that news of the North’s troop deployment was spreading across North Korea, with families of the dispatched troops having expressed “utmost fear and anxiety of their sons and brothers being used as slave soldiers and mere cannon fodder,” citing South Korea’s intelligence reports.
“This must stop immediately,” Hwang added.
Edited by Mike Firn.