North Korean Troops Reportedly Lack Drone Awareness as Russia Seeks to Mask Losses

North Korean troops are showing unusual responses to drones on the battlefield, a sign they may not have received adequate UAV training from Russian forces, Andrii Kovalenko, Head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, stated on December 17.

“The North Korean soldiers killed in action showed no visual awareness of the danger posed by UAVs before drone strikes, which may indicate that the Russians poorly informed the Koreans about the use of drones on the front line,” Kovalenko said. “This demonstrates that, for the Russians, the lives of the North Koreans hold no value.”

Kovalenko adds that Russian troops organized a fast evacuation of the North Korean soldiers killed in action, which could be driven by a desire to hide the failures of the deployed North Korean units.

“However, the Russian army is making swift efforts to evacuate the bodies of fallen North Korean soldiers from the front,” Kovalenko continues. “The evacuation of these bodies is organized better than that of dead or wounded Russian soldiers. The desire to conceal the failures of the North Koreans plays a significant role.”

On December 14, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Russia had deployed North Korean soldiers for the first time to attack Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk region.

A day later, on December 15, the commander of Ukraine's special drone unit Ptakhy Madyara released footage showing the aftermath of a battle in the Kursk region, where the bodies of Russian and North Korean soldiers were found together.