By Constant Méheut

KYIV— Ukraine is bracing for assaults involving North Korean soldiers who arrived last week in Russia’s western Kursk region, where they are expected to support Moscow’s efforts to dislodge Ukrainian forces who invaded in August.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday (28) confirmed that North Korean troops had been deployed in the Kursk region, saying it represented “a dangerous expansion” of the war. Ukrainian and US officials said last week that several thousand North Korean troops had arrived in the area.

The North Koreans in Kursk are part of a larger contingent of up to 10,000 troops that North Korea is preparing to fight on the Russian side, according to authorities in Kyiv and Seoul, South Korea. Military experts say that is too small a number to affect the overall situation on the broader battlefield, where both sides have deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, but potentially enough to help Moscow reclaim its territory in the Kursk region.

“As their numbers grow, I expect their impact to be seen by the progress of a steady Russian counterattack,” said John Foreman, a former British defence attaché in Moscow and Kyiv.

It is unclear, however, how exactly North Korean troops will support Russia’s counterattack in the Kursk region. Analysts say the soldiers could be used in direct attacks or to guard areas behind the combat zone, thus freeing up Russian troops for assaults, but their effectiveness in battle is untested and could be hampered by coordination issues with the Russians.

On Friday (25), President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said the North Korean troops were expected to enter combat operations early this week. A Ukrainian soldier fighting in the Kursk area said he had been warned by his commanders that an assault could be imminent.

“They have warned us about an attack in the near future,” Lt. Col. Artem Kholodkevych, the deputy commander of Ukraine’s 61st Mechanized Brigade said Saturday by text message. “Probably in the next few days.”

The Ukrainian army has also issued a Ukrainian-Korean phrase book for its troops to address North Korean soldiers and urge them to surrender, according to a Ukrainian officer who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Russian forces have been battling to reclaim hundreds of square miles of land seized by Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region during a surprise cross-border offensive in August. In recent weeks, Russia has regained several villages, and military experts say the deployment of North Korean soldiers could bolster Russian counterattacks.

Russia’s total recapture of the Ukrainian-occupied area would undermine one of the main goals of Kyiv’s cross-border offensive: seizing land it could use as leverage to push Moscow toward negotiations to end the war.

But how the North Koreans will fare on the battlefield remains to be seen, the experts say.

North Korean troops have not fought in a war since the 1950s and, if sent to the front line, would face battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers.

Viktor Kevliuk, a retired Ukrainian colonel now working for the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies, said coordinating them with Russian troops would also prove complex because they don’t speak the same language, have been trained differently and are not familiar with the terrain where they will fight.

“It could be a huge headache for the Russian army, which is not used to having large foreign units under its command,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to Washington and chair of the Munich Security Conference.

The Ukrainian military intelligence services said Russia planned to assign one interpreter for every 30 North Korean soldiers to better coordinate with Russian troops on the battlefield. That claim could not be independently verified.

Ukraine’s surprise offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region in August enabled it to quickly seize around 400 square miles of territory. Since then, the Russian army has recaptured nearly half of that area, but its response has been hampered by a slow deployment of troops there. Military experts say this is largely attributable to the Kremlin’s decision to prioritize its offensive in eastern Ukraine over its response to the Ukrainian assault on its own territory.

Still, the presence of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region has been a thorn in the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, shattering his promise that Russia was safe from attack and exposing his inability to protect civilians living in the borderlands.

In recent days, Putin has hailed his troops’ success in retaking villages captured by the Ukrainians. “He’s determined to evict them from Russia and it has taken too long for his liking,” Foreman said.

Kevliuk said he expected the North Korean troops to be used in assaults against Ukrainian positions, following Russia’s long-held strategy of overwhelming the other side with waves of ground attacks.

“North Korean units will storm the most fortified positions” of the Ukrainians “and Russian regular troops will consolidate the captured objects and lines,” Kevliuk said. “The Russian tactic is unchanged: to realize a numerical superiority in personnel with artillery support.”

Kyiv says Russia has deployed roughly 50,000 troops in the Kursk region and has not reported the number of Ukrainians deployed there. Independent military analysis suggests Ukraine has deployed about 30,000 soldiers. An additional 10,000 North Korean troops could allow Russia to overwhelm Ukrainian forces, experts say.

“Given their numbers, they may have an impact on the conduct of hostilities in certain areas,” Kholodkevych said of the North Korean troops.

Foreman said he expected the North Koreans instead to “remain on the defensive and shore up the front line,” leaving some Russian soldiers free for offensive operations.

If they are used for direct attacks, he added, “the reliability of North Korean troops will be doubted by the Russians and using them may expose Russian troops.”

The involvement of North Korean troops in the war has raised concerns in the West. On Monday, a delegation of officials from South Korea, which was the first to report the deployment, briefed NATO on the situation at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.

“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte said after the briefing. “It undermines peace on the Korean Peninsula and fuels the Russian war against Ukraine.”

-New York Times