A squad of Ukrainian commandos from the 8th Special Operations Regiment battled a North Korean force at least three times its size in Kursk Oblast in western Russia on or just before Jan. 12.
The dozen or so Ukrainian commandos and their supporting units fought scores of North Koreans at close range with sniper rifles and drones. After eight hours of hard fighting in a copse of trees near the hamlet of Kruglenkoe, the Ukrainians piled into armored trucks and sped back to the safety of the main Ukrainian line, half a mile to the east.
“Not a single fighter of the unit was injured,” the 8th Special Operations Regiment claimed, comparing the soldiers to the Spartans at The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. A video montage the regiment circulated after the battle points to heavy losses among the North Koreans. But it’s hard to say whether the Ukrainians can claim a clear victory.
Yes, they may have killed a lot of North Koreans, contributing to the roughly 30% casualties the 12,000-man North Korean 11th Army Corps has reportedly suffered since deploying to Kursk in October. The North Korean corps makes up a fifth of the Russian and allied force attempting to eliminate the 250-square-mile salient that 20,000 Ukrainian troops carved out of Kursk in a surprise August offensive.
But killing a lot of North Koreans won’t necessarily stop the combined Russian and North Korean force from pushing back the Ukrainians in Kursk. Just yesterday, the Russians and North Koreans advanced to the western outskirts of Viktorovka and Nikolskiy on the western edge of the salient, according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies.
There are signs of increasing strain on the Kremlin’s manpower system as it struggles to keep 600,000 troops on the front line in Ukraine and Kursk. At least one Russian field army, the 20th Combined Arms Army, has been ordering wounded men back into battle rather than sending them to hospitals to recover. These “crutch battalions” are easy targets for Ukraine’s drones.
But the Russians may be able to tap vast reserves of North Korean troops. The North Korean army has a million people under arms. Pentagon officials told The New York Times they expect additional North Korean forces to deploy to Kursk in the coming months.
The Ukrainians cannot count on their own allies to send troops—or much in the way of other aid. The embattled governing party in Germany has blocked $3.1 billion in planned support for Ukraine. The administration of Pres. Donald Trump in the United States has frozen foreign aid for 90 days; its strategists are mulling deep cuts to U.S. military activities in Europe.
When the last few batches of U.S. aid that former Pres. Joe Biden approved finally arrive in Ukraine, there could be a long gap in U.S. support for Kyiv’s war effort. A February election in Germany will determine the future of that country’s own contributions to the war.
The Ukrainian commandos’ eight-hour battle in Kursk 10 days ago may have ended with the commandos retreating, but at least they inflicted heavy losses on the attacking North Koreans. The next battle might not end so favorably for the commandos as one-time allies abandon them.
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