The ISW assessed the consequences of the participation of the military from North Korea in assaults against the Armed Forces

North Korea’s ability to learn lessons learned from its hostilities with Russia will be significantly impaired if North Korean troops are involved in foot combat, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Experts recalled that President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Saturday that the Russian military engaged North Korean fighters in infantry assaults in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation. He noted that “the Russian military includes a significant number of North Korean soldiers as part of Russian units operating in the region, and that North Korean soldiers have already suffered significant casualties.”

The head of state added that Russia may later start using North Korean soldiers in other areas of the front.

“This is the first time that a Ukrainian official has reported that North Korean troops are conducting assault operations, after Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umyerov said in an interview with South Korean national broadcaster KBS on November 5 that Ukrainian troops had taken part in “small” clashes with North Korean troops in the Kursk region,” ISW said.

The summary states that Russian military bloggers recently admitted that North Korean troops took part in assaults in the Kursk region, in particular in operations in Plekhovo. ISW cannot independently verify these claims.

“North Korea’s ability to absorb and take into account the lessons learned from its hostilities with Russia is likely to be significantly impaired if the Russian military command uses North Korean forces in the same high-attrition infantry attacks that employ the majority of Russian troops.” noted ISW experts.

Earlier, the representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Andriy Chernyak, told RFE/RL’s “Donbas Realities” project that two thousand North Korean servicemen have been sent to a marine brigade and an airborne division of the Russian army.

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine previously reported that the first military units from the DPRK arrived in the combat zone of the Russian-Ukrainian war on October 23, “their appearance was recorded in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.”

On November 5, the sources of the Financial Times and Suspilnyi in the special services informed about the first combat clashes between the Ukrainian and North Korean military in the Kursk region. It was noted that so far “we are not talking about major clashes”.

At the end of October, Western publications reported that North Korea had sent military personnel to Russia to participate in hostilities against Ukraine. According to Ukraine and Western countries, more than 10,000 North Korean troops have arrived in the Kursk region; at the beginning of November, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, reported that they had suffered their first losses. Moscow and Pyongyang did not confirm the direct participation of the North Korean military in the fighting.