North Koreans were killed in Kursk as they entered the Russo-Ukraine war in earnest | Russia-Ukraine war News

North Korean soldiers started going home in body bags over the weekend, having fought the Russians in large numbers for the first time.

“Today, we already have the first information that the Russians have started using North Korean soldiers in their attacks. A large number of them,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.

The military intelligence service of Ukraine (GUR) reported that the North Koreans were joined by Russian Marines and Airborne – elite units – in the Russian region of Kursk, where Ukraine attacked.

“In one of the positions in the Kursk region, the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea- DPRK] the soldiers were effectively ‘covered’ [First Person View] drones,” GUR said in a statement, estimating the combined losses of Russian and North Korean civilians at 200 on the first day of the wedding.

Al Jazeera could not confirm the number.

Eight of them were reportedly killed when the North Koreans accidentally opened fire on Chechen soldiers from the Akhmat Battalion.

“The language barrier remains a difficult barrier to management and communication,” said GUR.

Most of the losses occurred when North Korean forces tried to push back the Russian towns of Plekhovo, 2km (1.2 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and Vorozhba and Martynovka, 10km (6.2 miles) inside Russia.

Ukraine’s “Birds of Magyar”, a Marine Corps drone unit, released a video on Sunday purporting to be of the North Koreans killed in Kursk. Drone footage zooms in on a line of bodies with covered faces.

“After each wave, 4-5 Koreans arrived in cars, lined up the crushed corpses, like in the video, and covered the faces of the dead,” the statement said.

Some Ukrainian units fighting in Kursk are proud to highlight the success of the North Koreans, whose presence Kyiv sees as a major escalation of tensions.

The Faust Unit of Ukraine’s Special Forces reported killing or wounding 33 North Koreans in Kursk using small drones.

“The Koreans, despite their unusual movements in the fields, are trained to shoot down drones and try to evade them. They haven’t used the Russian tactic of freezing there FPV [drone] it appears,” the unit wrote on its Telegram channel.

The 8th Regiment of Ukraine Special Forces said it killed 50 North Korean soldiers in Kursk and wounded 47 between Saturday and Monday.

Separately, the 95th Polissia Airborne Assault Brigade claimed to have killed more than 50 soldiers in two days and wounded 100. its Telegram page.

“After heavy losses, DPRK units began to set up additional drone observation posts,” Ukrainian military intelligence said on Tuesday.

Zelenskyy posted that Russia was using scare tactics to cover up the loss of North Korean troops.

“After the battles with our boys, the Russians also tried to … burn the faces of the North Korean soldiers killed,” he wrote on Telegram.

He added, “There is no reason for Koreans to fight and die for Putin. And even after their death, everything that awaits them in Russia is ridiculous.”

There were no statements from Russia or North Korea about the first casualties of the Korean military.

Working on Russian soil

Ukraine also had success in wreaking havoc and killing behind enemy lines.

In the night from Friday to Saturday, the killers set fire to the Su-30 aircraft on the tarmac at the Krymsk airfield in Krasnodar Krai.

That same night, Ukraine attacked an oil production facility and a fuel dump in Russia’s Oryol region, saying it was being used to supply troops.

The previous day, they had burned and damaged three trains used to transport military supplies to Ukraine.

Ukraine also has two high-profile murders.

On Tuesday morning, the State Security Service (SBU) of Ukraine killed General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological defense forces. Kirillov was hit by explosives as he passed a parked scooter full of explosives, on Ryazansky Prospekt in the eastern suburbs of Moscow.

Kirillov was accused of ordering the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers. His assistant, Major Ilya Polikarpov, was also killed.

On Thursday, Ukrainian agents were accused of killing a top Russian military scientist.

Mikhail Shatsky was found dead in the Kuzminsky forest park in Moscow. He is reportedly involved in modernizing the Kh-59 missile to the standard of the Kh-69, and writing AI software for the Russian military’s unmanned aerial vehicles.

Shatsky was head of software at Mars, the Moscow Research and Design Bureau, a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state atomic energy agency.

ATACMS may be doing its job

Ukraine may also have succeeded in pushing Russian aircraft far enough from the front line to disrupt its ability to launch glide bombs.

The Ukrainian general staff noted that Russia launched 431 bombs in the first 12 days of December, after launching three times that number in the first 12 days of November.

“The sharp decrease in the number of air-guided missile strikes may be explained by Ukraine’s permission to attack Russia’s Western long-range missiles,” Ukrainian news agency Agentstvo News wrote, citing OSINT analyst Oliver Alexander.

“According to him, the threat of using ATACMS has forced Russian planes to move Su-34 bombers to airfields more than 600km (370 miles) away from the front – outside the destruction zone of Western missiles,” Agentstvo said.

US President Joe Biden authorized deep strikes using ATACMS on November 17, and Ukraine made its first confirmed use of the missiles two days later. It used British and French Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles the following day.

Statistics from the Ukrainian General Staff show the number of Russian bombers gradually decreasing in the last half of November.

The daily average of glide bombs in November was 110, according to the General Staff. By December it had dropped to 40, Agentstvo said.

“So the Russian military is on track to launch a third of the total number of bombs dropped by the Russian military in November 2024 this month,” said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.

Glide bombs are important because they have a large explosive area and Ukraine credits them with helping Russia win the battle for the town of Avdiivka in February. Since then, the Russian forces have slowly but surely advanced 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Avdiivka.

Nevertheless, US President-elect Donald Trump said he opposes Biden’s decision.

“I don’t think they should have allowed missiles to be fired 200 kilometers into Russia. I think that was a bad thing,” Trump said in his first news conference after the election. “I thought it was a very stupid thing to do.”

Trump said he would try to seek an agreement to end the war by 2025.

The ATACMS decision “removed the bargaining chip that President-elect Donald Trump may have used in future peace talks,” Demetries Andrew Grimes, a former US Navy officer, pilot and diplomat who supports Trump, told Al Jazeera.

Others criticized Biden for giving the concession too late.

“The prolonged operation has given Russia time to move some of its assets away,” said Minna Alander, a researcher at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs. “However, it is important for Ukraine to be able to attack Russian territory now, as it can finally fight in a meaningful way,” he told Al Jazeera.

Grimes believes that this decision has “reinforced Russia’s urgency to achieve success on the battlefield as the Russians now face the risk of attacks on critical military infrastructure”.

ISW estimated that Russia doubled its rate of development in November compared to October, claiming an average of 27 square kilometers (10 square miles) per day. It has completed a total of 2,356 square kilometers (910 square miles) of Ukrainian land by 2024, ISW said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday thanked the military for “liberating” 189 settlements this year, during a meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board. He said it was “a landmark year in achieving the objectives of the special military operation”.

The latest use of ATACMS came on the morning of December 11, when six missiles attacked Russia’s Taganrog airfield, a move to which “there will be a response,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russian war from the air

Russia has freely launched airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and its military.

Russia launched what ISW called its largest-ever air strike against Ukraine on Friday, involving 94 missiles and 193 kamikaze planes.

Ukraine shot down 81 missiles and 80 drones, disrupting another 105 with electronic warfare systems, but Ukrainian electronics firm DTEK reported significant damage to five of its plants.

“Each missile targets a specific area of ​​energy,” Zelenskyy said. “The strike coincided with the cold season. This is a deliberate, mindless Russian crime aimed primarily at our own people. “

Zelenskyy told a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force that Ukraine needs 12-15 air defense systems to protect its skies in addition to the five promised at the Washington NATO summit in July, increasing the number for the second time in two weeks.

On December 10 Zelenskyy asked for 10-12 Patriot programs, up from at least the seven he wanted in April. His latest statistic doesn’t refer to the Patriots’ plans in particular.

In a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Zelenskyy ruled that “a temporary suspension of hostilities… is only a temporary or uncertain thing. We need a strong shared position – for all our partners – and we need real peace. “