What the West Is Learning About North Korean Troops Fighting for Russia

• North Korean troops deployed to Russia have proven capable and fierce.
• Russia is using them in high-cost “human wave” assaults.
• The conflict is an opportunity for North Korea to learn modern warfare tactics and adapt.

North Korea’s soldiers are relentless, almost fanatical, in the face of death. They’re determined and capable in battle, even in an unfamiliar fight, and their tactics are outdated but brutal.

That is what the West has been learning watching Kim Jong Un’s army in action after Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the North Korean leader to supply fighters for his war on Ukraine.

Pyongyang deployed 11,000 men to Kursk in November disguised as Russian soldiers and carrying fake IDs. These troops are largely special operations forces, meaning they are more ardent in their beliefs and better trained than other units.

Russia has been pushing the North Koreans headlong into bloody assaults. The costs are high, but Kim’s army is learning an important lesson in return: how to fight a modern war.

North Korea sent some of its best soldiers

This war is North Korea’s largest military deployment to a foreign conflict in its almost 80-year history. To determine what the West is learning from this moment, Business Insider spoke to experts who have been closely following North Korea’s performance, examined publicly released intelligence, and reviewed Ukrainians’ observations.

Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence services have said that many of the troops that deployed to Russia are some of Pyongyang’s best, drawn from the 11th Corps, also known as the Storm Corps. The unit is trained in infiltration, infrastructure sabotage, and assassinations.

Ukraine’s top general, Oleksandr Syrsky, has said the North Korean troops are “highly motivated, well-trained,” and “brave.” And the Pentagon said this month that “these are relatively well-disciplined, competent forces” that are by all accounts “capable.”

Some Ukrainian soldiers have relayed their experiences to Western media, describing the troops as fast and nimble, good shots, and seemingly fearless as they rush into battle despite heavy losses. North Korean soldiers have also been found carrying diaries with written dedications to Kim and their country.

“They, as individuals, are more skilled as soldiers, more disciplined as soldiers, more willing to fight as soldiers than some sources had presumed when they were first being sent there,” said Joseph Bermudez, an expert on North Korea’s armed forces at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

North Korea has a culture driven by a martial philosophy that celebrates hard military power, and it maintains one of the world’s largest standing armies with around 1.2 million soldiers.

The country’s direct entry into the war has complicated the situation for the Ukrainians, particularly in Russia’s Kursk where Ukraine is struggling to hold captured ground. Ukraine has lost roughly half of the territory it once held inside Russia, and the relentless human wave attacks and brutal assaults have worn down Ukraine’s already strained defenses, depriving Kyiv’s forces of time to rest and brace for further attacks.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said last month that North Korea may be planning to deploy additional forces and military equipment to Russia.

Pyongyang has denied sending troops to Russia, and Kyiv has said Russian and North Korean forces attempt to remove dead North Korean soldiers from the battlefield or even burn the faces of dead North Koreans to make them difficult to identify.

Russia is sending North Korean soldiers into bloody assaults

Russia has been sending the North Korean forces into very high-casualty front-line assaults. Biden’s White House said late last month that “it is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses.”

A White House spokesperson previously described the North Koreans as “highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile.”

The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment on its assessment of North Korean forces fighting in Russia.

Ukraine’s Special Operation Forces said Friday the North Koreans fighting for Russia had not been seen in the Kursk area for around three weeks and had likely been withdrawn due to the heavy combat losses. BI was unable to independently confirm these details.

On the front lines, Ukrainian soldiers have said that the North Koreans are a capable fighting force that is adept at neutralizing drones. The soldiers are ruthlessly tough and determined, relentlessly pushing forward in “human wave” assaults, using fellow soldiers as bait, and casting aside armor for faster infantry movements. And they refuse to surrender, often opting to kill themselves with a grenade or bullet rather than be captured.

This is a defining element of the North Korean special operations training: soldiers are trained to follow orders aggressively, even if they suspect it will cost them their lives. If they disobey orders or fail without sacrifice, their families could suffer the consequences, Bermudez said.

North Korea is learning lessons in modern warfare

North Korean forces have suffered heavy losses fighting for Russia, per Western intelligence. Despite training with Moscow on infantry tactics, flying drones, artillery, and trench-clearing operations, the troops are still new to this war.

The soldiers “have been observed engaging in light infantry operations of a Second World War vintage — one man draws out enemy fire (in this case, drones) to locate a target, and others attempt to neutralize said target,” said Michael Madden, a Stimson Center Korea expert. They have not prepared for a mechanized battlefield like Ukraine’s, filled with armored vehicles and tanks.

“They’ve been trained to fight a war on the Korean Peninsula,” Bermudez said, and while North Korea has watched various armed conflicts closely over the decades, its forces are now getting a real taste for it on a battlefield and in an environment they haven’t been prepping for.

In the short term, that could have devastating consequences for the North Korean forces fighting for the Russians. The Institute for the Study of War think tank assesses that the entire 11,000-man contingent of North Korean forces could be killed or wounded in action by April if the current casualty rate continues. The latest estimates put losses around 4,000.

North Korea may consider these sacrifices worth it — if not for the Russian cause, then for what it learns in return.

“It is a dark version of the concept of ‘you learn by doing,'” Madden said, noting that it’s still early. “We will need further incidents and engagements to make more sound observations as to whether they are adjusting their tactics given the state of play in Russia and Ukraine.”

But there is no doubt they’re learning, acquiring knowledge critical for future conflicts that will make North Korea a more challenging combat force in East Asia. They’re seeing the Ukrainian use of US- and Western-provided weapons systems, such as HIMARS and Abrams, for example, and how the Russians have adapted to them.

“They’re bringing these lessons home in the hardest way possible: by bleeding for them,” Bermudez said.