North Korean soldiers sent in ‘suicidal attacks’ to soften up Ukraine troops for Putin’s final push in Kursk
As US negotiators arrive in Moscow for ceasefire talks, World affairs editor Sam Kiley looks at how Vladimir Putin’s forces fought back in Kursk
North Korean troops have been sent in “suicidal attacks” involving waves of men to overrun Ukrainian troops during Russia’s offensive to retake its border region of Kursk.
The launch of the Kursk operation was marked by attempts to break through Ukrainian lines outside the salient of land captured by Kyiv in a surprise assault in August.
Likening the North Korean tactics to a cyber attack that can crash a website with mass attempts to access it, a Ukrainian military officer told The Independent: “[We faced] human waves like DDOS attacks on our positions... we killed eight out of 10 North Koreans.
“But in some areas we had only small numbers of troops and so they killed and killed until they were overrun,” the senior officer commanding a reconnaissance unit added.
Ukraine has now been forced out of almost all of Kursk. The assault accelerated when Ukraine was cut off from using US intelligence feeds following a row in the Oval Office between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky two weeks ago.
Russian troops are also using long-range drones controlled by fibre optic cables that spool out of them making them immune to electronic counter-warfare signal blocking. “Thirty to 40 per cent of drones are fibre optic,” the Ukrainian officer said. The range of the drones is also unprecedented, reaching up to 25 kilometres (15 miles), he added.
The “human wave” assaults involving North Korean soldiers were part of the shaping operations for the Russian counteroffensive, allowing them to force Ukrainian troops out of small villages inside Russia, like Sverdlikovo – but only after hundreds of North Koreans had been killed.
As US negotiators arrived in Moscow for talks with Russia over the ceasefire proposal agreed between Washington and Kyiv, Ukrainian forces withdrew to their border, with orders to hold the Russian advance there.
“The Russians are trying to move south into Ukrainian territory to try to cut the main Ukrainian supply routes. They’re not getting anywhere vas we now no longer have to expose ourselves inside Russian territory and hold a wide area of land,” the Ukrainian officer told The Independent. “So we are able to inflict heavy casualties.”
The officer said that across the last three days the Russian forces, who have deployed their most elite units of special forces, marines and paratroopers into Kursk, have been operating with completely different tactics to those used by the North Koreans in the first wave of assaults.
The Russians are approaching in very small numbers carrying a lot of supplies and trying to sneak into our territory and remain there to build up their forces. Some are using thermal masking techniques which makes them very hard to find,” he said.
“Others have tried to get across the border using quad bikes. We had attacks like that yesterday using 18 quads with three men on each – only three squads escaped back to their lines. We destroyed the rest with drone and artillery,” the officer added.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian forces said in a Facebook statement: “Despite the increased pressure of the Russian and North Korean army, we will hold the defence in Kursk region as long as it is appropriate and necessary”.
It was once a necessary part of Ukraine’s negotiation platform in any future peace talks for Kyiv to control some Russian territory. But as Ukraine has taken heavy casualties and is being driven out of the territory it had seized, it is now deemed appropriate that Ukrainian troops pull back.
Heavy fighting is continuing and Sudzha – the largest town taken by Ukraine forces – is in the hands of the Kremlin’s troops, Moscow claimed. Syrskyi said that the town had been heavily bombarded and we as now in ruins.
He added that units were manoeuvring to "more favourable positions" to save soldiers' lives – but that Ukraine was fighting on with drones and artillery.
Videos and stills sent from the battlefield directly to The Independent show Ukrainian successes – not the losses that soldiers privately admit have been extremely heavy. They give some credibility to Syrskyi’s claims that dozens of Russian armoured vehicles and hundreds of other pieces of equipment have been destroyed and show Ukrainian hits against vehicles, bunkers, and North Korean troops advancing through woods.
“If we speak about Korean tactics,” the Ukrainian officer said. “The question is how many they are ready to sacrifice for this movement forward.”
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