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Photos published by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Jan 11, 2025 shows two North Korean military personnel captured by Ukraine forces soldiers in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine, he said. I am grateful to the soldiers of Tactical Group No. 84 of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as our paratroopers, who captured these two individuals.
North Korean troops reportedly face brutal treatment in Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Saturday that his troops had captured two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region and released a video of them describing their experience fighting for Russia. Zelensky said, “This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
The two soldiers are now receiving medical attention in Kyiv. Video of interviews with them shows one with a facial wound and one with a broken leg. One claimed he had believed his unit was going to Russia for training, not to fight Ukrainians, and showed that he had been issued false Russian documents.
Ukrainian forces fighting the North Koreans have described them as highly motivated and professional, but their outdated tactics and habit of committing suicide to avoid capture have led to high casualties. A North Korean diary published by Ukraine’s military described using soldiers as bait to draw in drones that other troops could then shoot down, a risky tactic that, if used widely, has likely contributed to between 1,000 and 4,000 casualties out of the roughly 12,000 who were originally deployed.
That attrition rate is simply not sustainable, and though Pyongyang has over 1.2 million military men, there are few highly indoctrinated and capable special forces. That might not be a big issue if incoming US President Donald Trump ends the war promptly as he has promised, but we’re watching for signs of impatience from Pyongyang.Ukrainian Armed Forces are deployed in the middle of the conflict with Russia on December 16, 2024. Ukraine claims that Russia has begun sending North Korean soldiers en masse to assaults in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces repel daily Russian attacks and control important areas.
North Korea preparing to send more troops to Russia as casualties rise, says Seoul
South Korean military officials said Monday that they had detected North Korean preparations to deploy more troops and weapons to Russia, and elaborated that at least 100 of Pyongyang’s soldiers had been killed and 1,000 more wounded so far, while Ukrainians claim 200 have died and nearly 3,000 had been wounded. If Seoul’s estimates are accurate, that would mean approximately one out of every ten troops dispatched since late October has already taken a wound or died.
The high casualty figures may stem from lack of battlefield experience and modern equipment, as North Korean units embedded with Russian peers attempt to push Ukrainians out of the Kursk region. It isn’t dampening Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s enthusiasm for cooperating with Russia, however, with the South Korean military claiming he has developed new suicide drones to send to the battlefront. US intelligence agencies said Monday that they believe North Korea offered Russia its troops, rather than the request originating in Moscow, in expectation of help with defense technology and political backing on the world stage.
Watch out for a nasty New Year’s gift, too. Seoul says Pyongyang may attempt to test a hypersonic missile in late December or early January. Just ahead of a presidential transition in the US, and with chaos in South Korean politics caused by impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to impose martial law on Dec. 3, don’t hold your breath for a strong response.Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un attend a state reception in Pyongyang, North Korea, in June, 2024.
Can North Koreans help Russia push Ukrainians out of Russia?
North Korea's state-controlled news agency KCNA announced on Tuesday that the country has ratified a strategic partnership agreement that allows Russia to use North Korean troops to help push Ukrainians from Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukrainian, US, NATO, and South Korean officials have warned in recent days that Russia has amassed a force of about 50,000 troops to try to evict Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions – and they say the force includes 10,000-12,000 North Koreans.
The presence of North Korean soldiers could help Russia push forward with its offensive in Ukraine’s East. But beyond the ability of the North Koreans to draw Ukrainian fire away from Russian forces, it’s not clear how effective they will be on the battlefield. None of them has significant combat experience, and the Ukrainians they will be deployed to attack have been fighting in their country’s Donbas region for a decade.
In addition, throughout this war, Russian forces have faced command-and-control issues. It remains to be seen how Russian commanders can effectively coordinate real-time battlefield maneuvers with large numbers of non-Russian-speaking troops.
New recruits of the 126th Territorial Defence Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attend a military exercise at a training ground, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in southern Ukraine October 29, 2024.
Russia unleashes assault, Ukraine seeks Allied permission to hit North Koreans
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Sunday that his troops were struggling to hold back “one of the most powerful Russian offensives” in the Donbas region. Meanwhile, North Korean troops are expected to go into combat near Kursk within days. President Volodymyr Zelensky has been strongly pressing allies to allow him to launch long-range missile strikes on the camps in Russia where Pyongyang’s troops are training, but Western governments have not budged.
The timing is no accident, given the US election on Tuesday, where both Moscow and Pyongyang have a lot on the line. Former President Donald Trump has said he will end the war “in one day” and halt support for Kyiv’s war effort, essentially forcing Ukraine to concede to Russia. Vice President Kamala Harris has promised to keep backing Kyiv, but it is not clear she would allow long range strikes into Russia.
A Trump presidency has similar upsides for North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, given the two leaders’ bizarre affinity. After a brief rapprochement during Trump’s first term, Kim’s unwillingness to give up his nuclear weapons caused relations to break down between the US and the Hermit Kingdom. But Ri Il Gyu, a North Korean diplomat who defected in July, said in August that Pyongyang is aiming to restart talks with Trump. They’re reportedly aiming at sanctions relief and the repeal of the designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism — without giving up their nukes — in exchange for minor concessions they think Trump could sell to his base.
Ukraine's Kursk invasion complicates Putin's war efforts
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Tabiano Castello in Italy.
How will the Ukraine Kursk incursion affect Putin's way of handling his war?
No question. It does complicate things for him quite considerably. First, they were trying to say, "Well, this is a quick thing. This will be over. The mighty Russian army is going to throw out the evil Ukrainians within a short period of time." That has clearly not been successful. So, now they're trying to say, "Well, this is not a big thing." They're trying to play it down. But whatever. It does complicate significantly the narrative that Putin has been trying to hand out, some say, or get anchored with the Russians that victory is going to come. It's only question of patience. He will have quite considerable difficulty. More on the political way. In the political respect than in the military with this operation.
What do we expect of Indian Prime Minister Modi's visit to Kyiv in the coming days?
I think it's going to be interesting to see. I would be interesting to see whether he hugs, embraces Zelensky in the way he did in a way that was quite remarkable with Putin when he was in Moscow a couple of weeks ago. And I think that sort of hugging of Putin did create some image problem for India in part of the word, notably in the West. And it will be interesting to see how far he goes in his visit to Kyiv in sort of counterbalancing the impression created by that hugging of Putin in the Kremlin.
Soldiers of Ukraine's 22nd Separate Mechanised Brigade take part in an exercise in the Sumy region near the Russian border, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, August 17, 2024.
Can Ukraine really make a buffer out of Kursk?
Nearly two weeks after launching the first invasion of Russia since World War II, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has a new purpose in mind: to create a “buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory.”
In plain English that means controlling territory that would prevent, or impede, Russia’s ability to launch its cross-border attacks on Ukraine.
Zelensky’s comments Sunday came as his troops blew up a second major bridge in the Kursk region of Russia, which borders Ukraine.
Russia has not been able to expel the Ukrainians so far, but Moscow also has not called back large numbers of troops from the main front in Eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces are advancing on the strategic city of Pokrovsk.
Narrative control. In the long term, the Kursk operation may help bolster Kyiv’s position in any future peace talks with Russia, as a reminder of Ukraine’s capabilities.
But in the more immediate term, it’s about something else, according to Tinatin Japaridze, a regional analyst at Eurasia Group.
“Kyiv is managing to inflict psychological pressure on Russia and boost the morale of its own forces and the public back home in Ukraine,” she says.
“It’s too soon to tell whether the operation will be justified both militarily and politically, but the optics have changed, and Ukraine is in many ways controlling the narrative right now.”
Servicemen of the 24th King Daniel of Galicia Separate Mechanized Brigade are firing a mortar at the positions of Russian troops near Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on August 14, 2024.
A buffer for Ukraine, new tensions with Belarus?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Ukraine’s military operation in Russia’s Kursk regionaims to establish a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow. Since Aug. 6, Ukrainian forces havedestroyed two key bridges and disrupted Russian supply lines. Further south, there has also been“intense military activity” near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, with the UN’s nuclear watchdog warning of deteriorating safety conditions.
For its part, Russia dismissed reports that Ukraine’s shock attack on Kurskderailed discussions on halting strikes near energy facilities. The Washington Post had claimed that delegations were set to meet in Qatar to negotiate a partial cease-fire, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova denied the existence of any talks.
Is Belarus next? On Sunday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed thata third of his country’s armed forces have been deployed along its border with Ukraine. Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Minsk’s move was in response to Ukraine’s “aggressive policy” of stationing over 120,000 troops on its side of the border. Lukashenko also said the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is heavily mined.
Ukrainian officials downplayed the situation. Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s border service,denied seeing any increase in Belarusian units or equipment at the border and criticized Lukashenko for “constantly escalating the situation with regularity to please the terrorist country.” We’re watching whether Belarus is bluffing, or whether this could open up another front in the war — and what moving the frontline to Belarus would mean for NATO allies like Poland.Ukrainian service members ride an Armoured Personnel Carrier, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the Russian border in Sumy region, Ukraine August 11, 2024.
Russia warns of “tough response” to Ukraine offensive
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this weekend that Ukraine is conducting a cross-border offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region, marking the deepest incursion into Russian territory since that country’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian forces have advanced more than six miles inside Russia, prompting the evacuation of over 76,000 people from border areas.
Zelensky saidthe move was designed to “restore justice” and exert pressure on Moscow.According to a senior Ukrainian security official, “The aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses, and to destabilize the situation in Russia,” adding “There is no idea of annexation.”
Russia's foreign ministry has warned of a“tough response” to the incursion. As of Sunday evening, Russia’s armyclaimed to have halted Ukraine’s advance, hitting targets in areas up to 20 miles from the Russian border, and stepped up attacks on Kyiv, killing a father and son on Saturday. Moscow’s Defense Ministry reported the destruction of 14 Ukrainian drones and four Tochka-U missiles over Kursk, denouncing the operation as “barbaric” and lacking military sense.
Russia has raised concerns about potential attacks on the Kursk nuclear plant, located just 37 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border, andthe International Atomic Energy Agency has called for both sides to “exercise maximum restraint to prevent a nuclear accident with severe radiological risks.” In response, Ukrainian officials assured, “We absolutely will not cause problems for nuclear security. This we can guarantee.”