Fighting has intensified in the Russian region of Kursk, with Ukrainian forces taking out whole columns of tanks and the battlefield littered with the corpses of Russian and North Korean soldiers, chilling pictures purportedly show.
Desperate to reclaim the region, part of which was first seized by Kyiv‘s forces back in August and has been defended by Ukraine since, Vladimir Putin has sent wave after wave of troops to die as ‘cannon fodder’.
So exhausted by the rate with which they have been killing their enemies, Ukrainian machine gunners are being replaced regularly, according to reports.
One soldier likened the onslaught to the bloody sieges of eastern Ukrainian cities like Bakhmut, saying that ‘after two hours [gun operators] couldn’t take it anymore.’
‘Here, the Russians need to take this territory at any cost, and are pouring all their strength into it, while we are giving everything we have to hold it,’ Sergeant Oleksandr, 46, a Ukrainian infantry platoon leader, told the New York Times.
‘We’re holding on, destroying, destroying, destroying – so much that it’s hard to even comprehend.’
Aiming to retake the town of Malaya Loknya, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the region, Putin’s forces reportedly launched a series of massive combined assaults involving some 50 armoured vehicles and hundreds of soldiers.
Ukrainian forces reportedly decimated the columns by disabling the lead vehicles with landmines and drone strikes, forcing those behind them to stop in their tracks.
Images shared by Euromaidan Press shows what appear to be Russian soldiers cowering in ditches and beneath trees as they are hunted by Ukrainian drones
Footage appears to show the bodies of Russian soldiers who tried to take cover in the frozen Kursk wasteland
A Ukrainian serviceman of the mobile air defense unit sits behind an anti-UAV machine gun
Sitting ducks in the line of fire, the Russian soldiers inside the vehicles then abandoned them and attempted to take cover in nearby trenches, allowing them to be easily taken out by Ukrainian gunfire and grenades dropped by drones.
Images shared by Euromaidan Press shows what appear to be Russian soldiers cowering in ditches and beneath trees as they are hunted by Ukrainian drones.
Due to the huge manpower enlisted by Moscow and the massive scale of attacks, Putin’s forces have been able to make ground in the region over recent days.
At an extremely high cost, with nearly a full mechanized company said to have been lost in one day, they have reportedly been able to take back control of the villages of Leonidovo and the eastern part of Novoivanovka.
Their ‘meat assaults’ have been assisted over recent months by the deployment of an estimated 12,000 North Korean soldiers, which Ukrainian soldiers say has made battles even more bloody.
‘They are putting our fronts under massive pressure and are constantly finding weak points where they can break through,’ a platoon leader said.
It comes after harrowing footage purportedly showed the corpses of more than a dozen North Korean troops lined up on the battlefield.
The Ukrainian OSINT group said that the video ‘confirms that the Russian command continues to massively use Koreans as cannon fodder for infantry assaults on Ukrainian army positions’.
The North Koreans were sent in ‘ahead of Russian units’ to storm frontline positions’ in Russia‘s Kursk region, contested amid a blistering Ukrainian offensive, it added.
Following a battle in Kursk this week, Ukrainian special forces scoured the bodies of more than a dozen slain North Korean enemy soldiers.
They found one still alive, but as they approached, he detonated a grenade, blowing himself up, according to a description of the fighting posted on social media by Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces on Monday.
The forces said their soldiers escaped the blast uninjured.
The Ukrainian OSINT group said that the video ‘confirms that the Russian command continues to massively use Koreans as cannon fodder for infantry assaults on Ukrainian army positions’
Macabre footage purports to show a row of North Korean soldiers killed in Kursk
The North Koreans were reportedly sent in ‘ahead of Russian units’ to storm frontline positions’ in Russia’s Kursk region, contested amid a blistering Ukrainian offensive
The report could not be verified, but it is among mounting evidence from the battlefield, intelligence reports and testimonies of defectors that some North Korean soldiers are resorting to extreme measures as they support Russia’s three-year war with Ukraine.
‘Self-detonation and suicides: that’s the reality about North Korea,’ said Kim, a 32-year-old former North Korean soldier who defected to the South in 2022, requesting he only be identified by his surname due to fears of reprisals against his family left in the North.
‘These soldiers who left home for a fight there have been brainwashed and are truly ready to sacrifice themselves for Kim Jong Un,’ he added, referring to the reclusive North Korean leader.
Moscow and Pyongyang initially dismissed reports about the North’s troop deployment as ‘fake news’.
But Russian president Vladimir Putin in October did not deny that North Korean soldiers were currently in Russia and a North Korean official said any such deployment would be lawful.
A North Korean soldier held after being captured by the Ukrainian army on January 11
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday the country’s military had captured two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region of Russia
Earlier reports say the faces of the corpses have been deliberately disfigured – including by burning – to stop them being identified as North Koreans.
Ukraine and South Korea reported late last year that North Korea had sent at least 10,000 troops to support Putin’s war effort as Ukraine began to make gains inside Kursk.
As many as 300 North Korean soldiers are believed to have been killed, with a further 2,700 wounded, in clashes so far, South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters on Monday.
He added that Pyongyang’s troops have been told to kill themselves before allowing themselves to be captured alive.
Ukraine this week released videos of what it said were two captured North Korean soldiers.
One of the soldiers expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine, and the other to return to North Korea, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.