‘Commanders Saw Us as Expendable’: A Russian Soldier’s View of the War – The Wall Street Journal
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‘Commanders saw us as expendable’: A Russian soldier’s view of the war
Mikhail Simdyankin was lured into the military by recruitment billboards promising generous payouts. The college graduate enjoyed a middle-class life in Russia’s cultural capital. Three weeks later, he was on the front lines in Ukraine, where his second mission left him with shrapnel injuries in his leg. He was ordered to charge into a ruined factory complex where two dozen of his comrades, wounded and starving, had been stuck for months. “Our commanders saw us as expendable,” said the 27-year-old, who is now being held at a prisoner-of-war camp. “They didn’t care whether or not we survived,” he said of his commanders, who saw him as “expendable.’“This account is based on interviews with Russian soldiers held as prisoners of war at four locations throughout Ukraine,” the Wall Street Journal says. The Journal also reviewed intercepted radio communications and videos recorded by soldiers on both sides to capture a rare picture of Russian troops’ experience of the war.
The college graduate enjoyed a middle-class life in Russia’s cultural capital, where he lived with his wife, Ksenia, a beauty salon worker, and their dog and two cats. He had a good job as a stock manager at a warehouse—but he also had unpaid utility bills. The military signing bonus dwarfed his monthly pay of around 90,000 rubles, or $1,100.
The bonus kept going up. In July 2024, it was 1.3 million rubles. Several weeks later, it passed 1.7 million. After returning home from work one evening he told Ksenia: “If it goes to 2 million, I’m signing up.”
He had to wait only three days.
Ksenia pleaded with him not to go. He thought the military would let him serve in the rear, given his lack of combat experience. The little he knew about the war came from triumphalist reports on state television.
Three weeks later, Simdyankin was on the front lines in Ukraine, where his second mission left him with shrapnel injuries in his leg. Shortly after, with a debilitating limp, he was ordered to charge into a ruined factory complex where two dozen of his comrades, wounded and starving, had been stuck for months—while Ukrainian forces were closing in from three sides.
Simdyankin in February.
Simdyankin was among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have been lured into the military—often drawn by propaganda, offers of lucrative pay and, for some, a chance to avoid prison time. They regularly find themselves dispatched hastily to the front, where Russia’s army fights with brutal Soviet-style tactics that pay for small gains with a colossal loss in lives. Russia ramped up its assault this summer, and this month President Trump announced a deal to send weapons and air defenses to Ukraine.
Western officials estimate that Russia has suffered more than 1 million casualties in Ukraine, with at least 250,000 soldiers dead. Some 400,000 Ukrainians have been wounded or killed.
Simdyankin survived against the odds. Most of the 100 soldiers in his assault group were severely injured or killed in less than a month. His mission to the factory turned into a harrowing sprint—but what he saw when he reached the garrison left him even more shaken.
“Our commanders saw us as expendable,” said Simdyankin, who is now being held at a prisoner-of-war camp. “They didn’t care whether or not we survived.”
This account is based on interviews with Russian soldiers held as prisoners of war at four locations throughout Ukraine and conversations with Ukrainians who fought against them for control of the factory. The Wall Street Journal also reviewed intercepted radio communications and videos recorded by soldiers on both sides to capture a rare picture of Russian troops’ experience of the war.
Simdyankin with his sister and nephew in a St. Petersburg restaurant last year.
Lured in
Simdyankin—a lanky 27-year-old with a soft voice and receding hairline—signed up for the military in August. He submitted his documents, passed blood tests for hepatitis and HIV, and was told to report for training several days later. He chose the military call sign Zenit, after his beloved St. Petersburg soccer team.
He told Ksenia and his sister, Nastia, that he would be home within a few months, free of debt. Up to that point, the family believed the war would simply pass them by. Nastia said she was shocked Simdyankin was willing to give up a good life to join it.
Simdyankin’s training, at two different locations of Russia’s 138th Brigade, was limited to two weeks of shooting practice and basic first aid. He sent Ksenia the first tranche of his bonus: 500,000 rubles. She bought herself an iPhone and cleared some of the overdue bills.
In early September, he was taken to a town on the border with Ukraine. Trucks arrived each morning and evening, filled with wood for building trenches and fresh recruits tasked to dig them. Armored vehicles and multiple rocket launchers kicked up dust as they drove through.
On his sixth morning there, a commander gathered Simdyankin and a dozen others and told them, “You guys are the third assault group.” They were being sent to Vovchansk, 5 miles away in northeastern Ukraine, where a fierce fight was unfolding.
The Russians had taken control of the northern bank of a narrow river bisecting the town, while Ukraine controlled the south. Russia’s ultimate target was Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, but Vovchansk stood in the way. Brutal house-to-house combat raged.
That day, Simdyankin said, “is when I understood we’re in deep s—.”
Destroyed buildings in Vovchansk in October.
‘Please forgive me’
In Vovchansk, he and three other men were sent to assault a house occupied by a group of Ukrainian troops. Don your body armor, load your rifle and grab two grenades, he was told.
The men approached the house at dusk, threw grenades through one window, and entered through another. Two of the Russians were immediately killed by machine-gun fire, Simdyankin said. He and one other fighter withdrew.
Several days later, he was dispatched on a second mission with another soldier: to throw an activated antitank mine through the window of a Ukrainian-held house. This time, the enemy troops saw them coming, and opened fire.
A bullet ricocheted off Simdyankin’s rifle, spraying his legs and torso with tiny metal fragments. He saw the other Russian crumple to the ground. He ran through a hole in the ruins of a nearby building, crawled into the gutted basement and prayed he wouldn’t be found.
He lay there for hours, listening to the Ukrainian troops talking to each other. He tied a basic bandage around his bleeding left leg, and tried to sleep. He sipped his only bottle of water, and waited for the Ukrainians to move on.
The next morning, an explosion sent bricks onto his back, but he didn’t dare leave. Thinking of his loved ones and the life he had left behind in St. Petersburg, he wept.
On the third day, he fumbled for his phone, opened the Russian VK social media app and drafted messages to his wife and sister. “I love you. Please forgive me,” he wrote, hoping the words would be delivered once his phone was back online. “We’ll meet in the next life.”
Then he lowered the safety catch of his damaged Kalashnikov, rested his chin on the muzzle and placed his finger on the trigger. “I wanted the ordeal to end,” he said.
But he couldn’t do it. “It turned out I was stronger than I thought,” he said.
The following morning, unable to hear the Ukrainians, he decided to take his chances. He mustered his remaining energy and staggered out of the ruined house.
In the four days he had been in hiding, the entire street had been razed to the ground. On another street, he narrowly avoided a Ukrainian drone strike by taking cover in a nearby building, where he encountered Russian soldiers.
“I’m one of you!” he cried. “It’s Zenit!” The men thought he had died.
Simdyankin at a temporary facility holding Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine in December.
Simdyankin had shrapnel injuries to his leg and thigh. He had lost weight, after going days without food. He got less than a week to recover. On Sept. 22, his commander told him reinforcements were badly needed at the sprawling machine-parts plant where dozens of Russians were holding off against a Ukrainian onslaught.
Every one of the 100 or so troops in Simdyankin’s unit was either severely wounded or dead, the commander said. Simdyankin would have to go. Recalling that moment later, he said: “I just felt a deep sense of injustice.”
He arrived in a basement where five other soldiers were filling backpacks with bags of rice, buckwheat and pasta; cans of tinned meat; packs of painkillers and cigarettes; and ammunition.
As night fell, they awaited the command to set off. His partner would be Ivan Shabunko, a 47-year-old construction worker who had joined the military to avoid a prison sentence after a drunken argument with a police officer in the spring of 2024.
Shabunko shared Simdyankin’s view of the mission that lay ahead. “We all knew it was a one-way ticket,” Shabunko said.
The factory
Before the war, the Vovchansk plant had exported engine and airplane parts throughout the former Soviet Union, helping equip the Russian combat helicopters and jet fighters now being used to attack Ukrainian cities. Its 30 multistory buildings provided perfect cover for an invasion force.
By the time of Simdyankin’s mission, the Russians had been holding the factory for months. But Ukraine was closing in and the garrison was almost out of provisions. In a cellphone video recorded inside the factory, a bearded Russian soldier asked, “Surely this is going to end?” The soldier beside him replied, “I hope it’s soon.”
Another soldier filmed flies swarming around his bowl of pasta and tinned meat soup. “This is what lunch looks like,” he said.
Ukraine had blown up three armored vehicles with provisions on their way to the factory. Drones carrying supplies were either missing their target—a hole in the roof of one building—or were downed by Ukraine’s electronic jamming.
Squad commanders railed against those who refused orders to collect food or to go on assaults against Ukrainian positions, accusing some of feigning injuries. Those who went out were often injured or killed by Ukrainian fire.
“Just sticking your nose out could end your life,” said Aleksandr Trofimov, a soldier in his early 40s who was injured by shrapnel after trying to salvage food in July.
The men inside the factory were feuding over the remaining supplies. “Where the f— did six half-liter bottles go?” one Russian asked in a radio exchange intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence. A subordinate responded: “Yeah, even the water I left this morning, and asked them not to touch, has been drunk.”
At least one wounded fighter shot himself inside the factory, unable to handle the misery of it all, according to three soldiers who were there.
At one point in September, one Russian soldier was complaining to another over the radio, saying there were only seven combat-ready people remaining and assailing the military command’s empty promises to give the exhausted men a break.
“They’ll keep throwing us forward until there’s no one f—ing left,” he said. The other man replied: “Same story, different day.”
‘Moving skeletons’
Simdyankin and Shabunko set out for the factory before dawn on Sept. 23, leading a group of four other men across a park that was mined and covered in deep holes from shelling.
They advanced in groups of two several minutes apart, guided by Russian drones emitting a faint blue light overhead.
Pain shot through Simdyankin’s injured leg. He had a rifle slung across his shoulder, and his rucksack was stuffed with nearly 90 pounds of supplies.
Once he made it to about 100 yards from the factory, he stopped to regain his breath, taking shelter behind a tree.
In the moonlight, he saw Shabunko’s lumbering silhouette. “Hurry up!” he shouted. They covered the final 100 yards together, as fast as they could.
They ran inside just as an airplane detonated a powerful glide bomb over the facility, showering them with bricks and mortar. Shabunko grabbed the radio and told his unit commander the two men had made it. The officer congratulated them. The four others in their group, he said, had not.
Ivan Shabunko in a Ukrainian detention center in February.
Inside, emaciated figures Simdyankin later described as “moving skeletons” looked up at them. With their faces blackened by soot and dust, they cowered behind machine tools lining the walls that provided some shelter from the relentless bombardment. Shards of glass and bullet casings littered the floor. Bloodied bandages and syringes lay in a pile.
Of more than 100 Russian troops who had set up positions inside the plant months earlier, Simdyankin and Shabunko were told, no more than 25 now remained alive, spread out across two buildings in the complex.
One soldier, who was badly wounded and could only see through one eye, lay on a bed of dirty clothes with a gun pressed tightly against his chest. Three dead bodies were decomposing in the building, Simdyankin said.
The new arrivals handed out rations of food and ammo—enough to keep the nine men in their section going for the next two days.
That evening they helped prepare a meal of buckwheat, canned meat and rice. The men sat and ate silently, lacking the power or inclination to speak.
In the morning they set about fortifying their position. They stacked cardboard boxes and even tin cans on top of the heavy machine equipment to provide some scant cover from the constant drone and artillery strikes.
Time was almost out. Members of the Timur Special Forces Unit, a group of elite Ukrainian soldiers overseen by the country’s military intelligence agency, were methodically working their way through the factory.
That evening, in another section of the plant, a Russian commander approached the Ukrainians and negotiated terms of surrender for his men.
The next day, another Ukrainian squad crept along the rubble around the warehouse where Simdyankin, Shabunko and the others were holding out, and launched a final assault.
A fast-moving conflagration overwhelmed the Russians in the warehouse, Simdyankin said. He felt intense heat, and temporarily lost his sight. The Ukrainians had thrown antitank mines and multiple grenades into the building, seeking to flush the Russians out. “Give yourselves up!” they shouted. The Russians fired back.
The Ukrainians had the building under siege. “This whole place is about to be destroyed,” one of the Ukrainians says in footage filmed by a camera mounted to his helmet. “We all want to live, just like you do.”
Slowly, nervously, the Russians emerged into the daylight.
Some of the captured men’s faces and hair were so burned that one Ukrainian soldier involved in the operation said “they looked like they just had come out of an oven.” The Russians were given water and cigarettes, but they kept pleading for food.
“They were starving us to death,” one tells his captors in footage from the scene.
Several hours after Simdyankin and Shabunko were led out of the area, Russia fired thermobaric “Scorching Sun” rockets that engulfed the vast compound in fire. Among those incinerated in the towering blaze were several badly wounded Russian soldiers, according to those taken captive, as well as the corpses no one had been able to collect.
‘A stupid mistake’
A few days after his capture, Simdyankin was allowed to call his wife for the first time in weeks.
“Forgive me for going to war,” he is shown telling her in a video Ukraine posted online, lowering his head to the table as tears streamed down his face, almost unrecognizable because it was so badly burned at the factory.
A screenshot of a video Ukraine posted online showing an interview with Simdyankin, his face badly burned.
Five months after that call, a very different Simdyankin walked into the visiting room of a prisoner-of-war camp in eastern Ukraine.
The tall, athletic soccer player now sported an inmate’s buzz-cut, and the burns on his face had healed, leaving behind a prominent scar. He had been treated for his injuries and had regained weight.
He spent his days sewing and weaving baskets with other prisoners, and watching Ukrainian television reports about the war and talks to end it. His sister sent him the scores of Zenit soccer matches, relayed in typed messages delivered by the Red Cross. In an interview, she said she worried that he could be sent to fight again after he returns home.
Reflecting on his monthlong ordeal in the Russian army, Simdyankin said the most terrifying part was seeing healthy young men, some of whom he called friends, die for no reason. He lamented getting foolishly swept up in “a pointless war.”
All he wanted, he said, was to be included in a prisoner swap that would bring him home, so that he could pick up where he left off in St. Petersburg, starting a family and building a normal life.
“I’m really angry at myself. I made a stupid mistake,” he said. “If I could, I would go back in time and give all that money back.”
Simdyankin is one of more than 400 Russians at the POW camp where he is being held.
Write to Matthew Luxmoore at matthew.luxmoore@wsj.com
Pickleball is now part of the recruitment offer
Companies are partnering with sports brands to support running, pickleball, obstacle-racing and other activities. More India Inc. employees want to participate in such events instead of passively engaging as spectators. While cricket remains, by some distance, the most popular sporting activity, other sports such as running, racquet games, football, padel andPickleball are catching on. The companies gain greater visibility, higher engagement and better brand recall from sponsoring sports activities. But employees too see it as a perk—a bit like tech giants serving seven kinds of global cuisines in their cafés and having nap rooms in the Y2K years. For Apollo Tyres, the inspiration to partner with running events came from within the organisation. For Tata Consultancy Services, it was a chance to meet their then CEO and seasoned marathoner N. Chandrasekaran after the race. For Puma, it’s an incentive that gives the employee a push; other times it’s the employee who pushes the company to bring about the change.
Sometimes, it’s an incentive that gives the employee a push; other times it’s the employee who pushes the company to bring about the change.
Pulak Chaudhary, 45, the Bengaluru-based director of sales at Puma, started running about a decade ago when his reporting manager promised him a trip to Goa if he completed a half marathon that the brand was sponsoring in under two hours. What started as a bet of sorts has turned into a lifelong passion for building endurance. Chaudhary recently participated in the Hyrox race, an indoor fitness race that combines running and functional workouts in Mumbai, which Puma sponsored.
“The encouragement from your colleagues in the run-up to an event plays a big role in people signing up for activities they wouldn’t normally do. Also, when the company takes the initiative to sign you up, it’s one hassle less,” says Chaudhary.
While cricket remains, by some distance, the most popular sporting activity, other sports such as running, racquet games, football, padel and pickleball are catching on.
That’s a reason several brands are looking beyond cricket when it comes to sponsorship and partnerships with participative sporting events (like marathons), while also hoping that such collaborations motivate their employees to be more active.
There’s no doubt that the companies gain greater visibility, higher engagement and better brand recall from sponsoring sports activities but employees too see it as a perk—a bit like tech giants serving seven kinds of global cuisines in their cafés and having nap rooms in the Y2K years.
In the early days of the Mumbai marathon, thousands of employees of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a partner to the event, signed up for a chance to meet their then CEO and seasoned marathoner N. Chandrasekaran after the race. Two TCS employees who have been at the company since 2009, when Chandrasekaran became the CEO, said some of their colleagues who had no interest in running signed up and began training for the half marathon just to meet him. For Apollo Tyres, the inspiration to partner with running events came from within the organisation.
“Even before we started sponsoring running events in 2023, we had been organising internal races at our plants since 2019,” says Remus D’Cruz, head (sports marketing and communities), Apollo Tyres Ltd. The company has since partnered with multiple running events, including the Delhi marathon and races in Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune, at which their teams participate.
Running is a high engagement sport, says D’Cruz. “Our associations provide a platform to more employees to come forward and test their strength and endurance, while bonding over races. We had a huge number of employees participating in different categories, which has only increased year-on-year.” Apollo Tyres has 500 regular runners in its employ.
Pickleball, arguably the fastest growing global sport trend, is a new favourite for those working at Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai. It has partnered with a local pickleball tournament as well as co-sponsored the Chennai Super Champs team in the World Pickleball League in Mumbai.
“Health is a way of life. This fuels our efforts to engage with communities and organisations through sports and wellness activities,” says Dr Kiran Shingote, unit head, Apollo Hospitals, Navi Mumbai, adding that the pickleball partnership was done bearing in mind the sport’s rising popularity and accessibility.
These partnerships, however, have inspired staffers to create inter-departmental teams that mirror the franchise spirit and compete in an in-house pickleball competition.
The novelty value can fade quickly, too. One race organiser explains that many corporate participants do not return after having “won a medal once.” “Not everyone is sporty or interested in being active,” Chaudhary says. “Many do it at least once to fit in. Some participate for bragging rights. Many do it because they want to experience it at least once and find out what the hype is about,” says Chaudhary, who has been at Puma India for 18 years, during which he has seen interest in sports events spike and drop in waves. Another reason people steer clear of such events is because they are usually held on weekends and people don’t want to compromise on family time, Chaudhary points out.
“There will always be a small percentage of people who lose interest after the event,” admits D’Cruz. “But that number is gradually reducing. There is increased awareness and enthusiasm towards fitness and active lifestyle, especially post covid. Fitness, as a culture, is growing.”
The benefits of being active are many—from overall health and wellness to stress management. Employees are aware of this and are demanding that employers too take an interest in their overall well-being. “What begins as an event often becomes a habit. After the pickleball tournament, several employees began playing weekly, forming their own informal groups,” says Shingote. “We’ve seen such events act as the starting point of individual wellness journeys—whether it’s picking up a sport, committing to walking daily, or becoming vocal advocates for causes like cancer awareness.”
Write to us at feedback@livemint.com
Also read: How to talk politics at work when you disagree
Zelensky arrives in Turkey to seek peace—but Putin is a no-show
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Turkey on Thursday to underscore his commitment to ending the war. His Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin stayed away, sending a junior delegation instead. The complex diplomatic maneuvering reflects attempts by both Russia and Ukraine to convince the Trump administration that they are interested in a peaceful solution. Trump hinted Wednesday that he might come to Turkey if Putin also attended, but the Russian leader announced hours later that he is sending instead a junior team led by former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky. Despite that snub, Trump held out the possibility of a breakthrough, saying, “If something happened, I’d go on Friday if it was appropriate” The Ukrainian leader accepted Trump’s call for a 30-day unconditional cease-fire to facilitate more substantive talks on ending the War in Ukraine. But Putin declined to heed the request, sending to Istanbul the same officials who represented him in the abortive negotiations of March 2022.
Zelensky, who is slated to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in capital Ankara, wasn’t expected to meet with the Russian negotiating team that separately arrived in Istanbul on Thursday morning.
But a meeting between lower-level Ukrainian negotiators and the Russians remains possible, perhaps as early as Thursday afternoon. No time for that encounter has been set so far. Senior U.S. negotiators are also scheduled to travel to Istanbul on Thursday evening and Friday.
This complex diplomatic maneuvering reflects attempts by both Russia and Ukraine to convince the Trump administration that they are interested in a peaceful solution—but without compromising on their own core positions. Trump, who is visiting the Persian Gulf, has made ending the war in Ukraine his key foreign policy priority.
Trump hinted Wednesday that he might come to Turkey if Putin also attended—but the Russian leader, who kept the option open for days, announced hours later that he is sending instead a junior team led by former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky. Despite that snub, Trump held out the possibility of a breakthrough.
“I was thinking about going, but it’s very tough because of what we’re doing today and tomorrow. But you know, if something happened, I’d go on Friday if it was appropriate,” he said Thursday in Doha, Qatar, ahead of a visit to Abu Dhabi.
In March, after a turbulent meeting that resulted in Zelensky’s ejection from the White House, the Ukrainian leader accepted Trump’s call for a 30-day unconditional cease-fire to facilitate more substantive talks on ending the war. Ukrainian negotiators only plan to meet the Russian team that arrived in Istanbul to discuss implementing and monitoring that cease-fire, and won’t touch other matters until the cease-fire is in place, according to officials briefed on Kyiv’s position.
Unlike Zelensky, Putin declined to heed Trump’s cease-fire request. Instead, he sent to Istanbul the same officials who represented him in the abortive negotiations of March 2022 that essentially sought Ukraine’s surrender.
Russian officials said they seek to renew the talks with Ukraine on the basis of the 2022 Istanbul draft agreements, discussed at a time when Russian tanks were deployed on the Kyiv ring road. These drafts, never endorsed by Zelensky, called for a dramatic cut in the size of Ukrainian armed forces, restrictions on Ukrainian weaponry, and other wide-ranging limits on Ukrainian sovereignty.
All of that is unacceptable for Ukraine and its European allies, which intend to continue supplying weapons to Kyiv and hardening the Ukrainian army so it would be able to defend the country against renewed Russian attacks. Ukraine currently controls much bigger territory and has much more potent weapons—including those that can strike deep into Russian territory—than in March 2022.
Ahead of the Zelensky-Erdogan meeting, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha discussed Ukraine’s negotiating stance in the Turkish city of Antalya with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Lindsey Graham and, separately, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland. Rubio, Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Middle East Steve Witkoff and his special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg are all expected in Istanbul, according to U.S. officials.
The leaders of France, Poland, Germany and the U.K. visited Zelensky in Kyiv last week, calling on Putin to agree to an unconditional cease-fire and pledging ramped-up sanctions against Russia if he fails to do so. Trump has also discussed the possibility of secondary sanctions that would strangle Russia’s oil exports—the country’s main source of income—if Putin refuses to engage in the peace process. Graham is pushing through legislation with that aim. It is unclear whether the White House, which so far focused on wooing rather than threatening Putin, would in the end agree to such punitive measures.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
North Korea’s forces appear to be the latest ‘expendable’ army chewed up fighting Russia’s war against Ukraine
North Korean forces fighting for Russia are reported to have suffered significant losses. Though the troops are believed to be elite forces, they’ve been used similarly to Russian prison units. Ukraine’s military has said these forces haven’t been seen in weeks, speculating that their high casualty rate may have led to them being withdrawn. North Korea’s direct entry into the Ukraine war isn’t a primary function of new elevation in the conflict, KCNA reports. But Russia has turned up the pressure, making it more difficult to hold a significant portion of the territory it captured in Kursk, the KCNA says. The Institute for the Study of War think tank recently estimated that the entire contingent could be killed or wounded by April if current casualty rates were to continue. But North Korean forces no longer appear to be on the front line, according to South Korean intelligence agency. It’s not clear if Russia has an endless supply of bodies, though many say it does, as Russia has more bodies to commit to the war than Ukraine.
Though the troops are believed to be elite forces, they’ve been used similarly to Russian prison units.
The soldiers appear to have been removed from combat.
North Korean forces sent to fight Russia’s war appear to be the latest in a growing line of disposable troops that have been torn apart in its fight against Ukraine.
The troops sent to fight in Kursk are believed to be some of North Korea’s more dedicated, better-trained soldiers, but they’ve suffered heavy losses in bloody “human wave” assaults. Ukraine’s military has said these forces haven’t been seen in weeks, speculating that their high casualty rate may have led to them being withdrawn.
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South Korea’s intelligence agency supported these observations, according to local media, saying there had been no signs of the North Korean forces engaging in combat in Kursk in weeks. The National Intelligence Service said the high losses could be the reason the forces were pulled off the front line, but they were looking into it.
Expendable armies
Russia has suffered high casualty rates throughout its war on Ukraine. Anadolu via Getty Images
Russia’s war against Ukraine has devastated entire Russian military units, from elite forces to poorly trained conscript units, butchered convict armies, and wiped out mercenary forces. Like the North Korean troops, many of these forces have been described as “cannon fodder” or simply “meat.”
The brutal Wagner mercenary group, which relied heavily on prisoners, lost an estimated 20,000 fighters in the fight for Bakhmut. Russia’s Storm-Z penal units, which are basically convict forces, experienced high losses in front-line fights as well.
Last year, the British Ministry of Defense accused Moscow of “wasting lives in a grotesque approach that typifies the depths to which President Putin’s regime is prepared to go.” Now, North Korean forces seem to have experienced a similar fate.
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More than 11,000 North Korean soldiers, mostly special operations forces, deployed to Russia’s Kursk region last November in the wake of Ukraine’s shock invasion of Russian territory.
Later, once the North Korean troops had seen actual combat, the Biden White House said the soldiers were involved in front-line assaults in Kursk and were being treated “as expendable.” A Ukrainian commander who faced the North Koreans in battle told Business Insider they were basically “cannon fodder.”
Western and South Korean intelligence have tracked the reported casualties. The latest estimates put losses at about 4,000. The Institute for the Study of War think tank recently estimated that the entire contingent could be killed or wounded by April if current casualty rates were to continue. But North Korean forces no longer appear to be on the front line.
The Russian way of war
Russian soldiers fighting against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region in November. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
In a talk hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday, Seth Jones, the president of the center’s defense and security department, said that the reported casualty rate was astonishing and that the soldiers were seemingly being used in ways similar to Russia’s prison units, especially in Kursk, where the goal is to retake the territory Ukraine has seized and fortified.
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“That’s the way it appears that the Russians have used North Korean forces,” Jones said, adding that Russia had done this with higher-end forces as well. “This is the Russian way of war,” he said. “It is stunning in the high-casualty component of it.”
Last month, Jones and Benjamin Jensen, a fellow at CSIS’s future lab who’s also a professor at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting, wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that though a majority of North Korean forces appeared to have come from its elite Storm Corps, they were being used for mine clearance and frontal assaults on fortified Ukrainian positions. This isn’t a primary function of special operations units.
North Korea’s direct entry into the Ukraine war marked a new elevation in the conflict. KCNA via REUTERS
Russia has shown improvements in its wartime tactics. Its electronic warfare and use of uncrewed systems have developed rapidly. It has also advanced its reconnaissance strike complex. But the way it approaches retaking territory and engages in attritional warfare with many losses continues.
A slow, grinding, attritional fight is not one that works to Ukraine’s advantage, as Russia has more bodies it can commit to its war machine. Even as Ukraine continues to hold a significant portion of the territory it captured in Kursk, Russia has turned up the pressure, making it more difficult to hold. Moscow doesn’t have an endless supply of bodies, though.
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Russia’s human-wave assaults, vicious tactics with roots in old Soviet doctrine, have been documented throughout the war. They’re intended to strain and overwhelm enemy defenses, but they come at extreme costs.
The estimates for Russians killed and wounded in this war have been as high as 800,000. Western intelligence has tracked increasingly high daily losses, especially at the end of last year. The North Korean soldiers appear to now be being added to those losses. Neither the Russian embassy nor the Russian defense ministry responded to requests for comment.
A bloody partnership
North Korean forces haven’t been seen on the front lines in weeks, reports say. Kim Won-Jin / AFP
When North Korea deployed troops to fight for Russia, it appeared to signal the next step in a growing partnership. North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin have negotiated a mutual defense pact, as well as arms deals.
Along with combat forces, North Korea has delivered ammunition and other weapons to Russia. What Kim could be getting in return remains highly speculative, but possibilities include certain space and satellite capabilities, as well as food, petroleum products, and help with its air force and submarines. North Korea is also getting critical insights into how its weapons, including both artillery and missiles, perform in battle and valuable lessons in the ways of modern warfare.
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Jones said Pyongyang appeared to have offered troops to Moscow rather than reacted to a request, but it’s unclear whether North Korea fully understood how its troops would be used. For Putin, the benefit of using North Korean troops, much like Wagner and other forces, is the ability to avoid a contentious mobilization at home.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said last month that Pyongyang might be planning to deploy additional forces and military equipment to Russia. Though North Korean forces seem to have been absent from the front lines in recent weeks, it’s unclear whether that’s temporary or permanent.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The expendables? How North Korean soldiers are being used as bait by Russia in Ukraine war
Ukraine has published the diary of a slain North Korean soldier in Russia’s Kursk that shows how troops from Pyongyang are attempting to combat drones. The soldier, named Gyeong Hong Jong, wrote that one of the troops should act as ‘bait’ to lure the drone out, while his comrades attempt to bring it down. According to reports, thousands of troops from North Korea have been deployed to the region. It is unknown whether these are authentic tactics or whether they were taught by the Russians. But this tactic is extremely hazardous to the life and limb of North Korean soldiers. This is because many of Ukraine’s drones including their switchblade ‘kamikaze’ drones are loaded with explosives. The video, purportedly taken from a North Korean drone, purportedly shows the soldier trying to shoot at the UAV from a Ukrainian First Person View (FPV) channel. It has been reported that a video was shared on a Ukrainian military social media channel of a North Korea soldier taking incoming from a UAV.
Ukraine has been publishing the diary of slain North Korean soldier Gyeong Hong Jong. Image courtesy: @SOF_UKR
Is Russia using North Korean soldiers as bait in the Ukraine war?
This is what Kyiv is alleging.
According to reports, thousands of troops from Pyongyang have been deployed to the region.
But what do we know about the claim? And why does it matter?
Let’s take a closer look:
What do we know?
As per The Wall Street Journal, the details were revealed in the diary of a slain North Korean soldier.
The stick-figure diagram drawn in blue ink showed how North Korean soldiers fighting the war on behalf of Russia are trying to combat Ukrainian drones.
The notes said that one soldier should act as “bait” to draw the drone out, while his fellow troops can try to bring it down.
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As per Business Standard, the North Korean soldier was named Gyeong Hong Jong.
Ukraine has been releasing excerpts of the diary for weeks.
As per Newsweek, the ploy requires a minimum of three people.
The soldier acting as ‘bait’ stays 23 feet away from the drone, while his comrades stay around 33 to 39 feet away.
The soldier remains in place to stop the drone from moving – hence luring it in and giving the other two a chance to bring the UAV down.
According to Daily Express, this tactic is extremely hazardous to the life and limb of North Korean soldiers.
This is because many of Ukraine’s drones including their switchblade ‘kamikaze’ drones are loaded with explosives.
The stick-figure diagram drawn in blue ink showed how North Korean soldiers fighting the war on behalf of Russia are trying to combat Ukrainian drones. Image courtesy: @SOF_UKR
Ukraine’s Special Forces said the North Korean soldier who wrote the diary died in a firefight with two of his comrades.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which published a translation of his notes, the diary reads, “If a UAV is spotted, gather in groups of three. One person must act as bait to lure the drone while the other two take aim and neutralize it with precision shooting. The bait must maintain a distance of seven meters from the drone. The other two should prepare to shoot down the drone from a distance of 10-12 meters. When the bait stands still, the drone will stop and it can be shot down.”
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Business Standard also wrote that the soldier wrote how to dodge strikes.
The soldier in an excerpt said that North Korean troops were told to “disperse in small groups” if fired upon by artillery.
The soldier said he would return to the previous location where he hid because he believed artillery didn’t repeatedly hit the same spot.
Entries in the diary also displayed the soldier’s utmost loyalty to Kim Jong-Un.
“Even at the cost of my life, I will carry out the Supreme Commander’s orders without hesitation,” one entry states. “I will show the world the bravery and sacrifice of Kim Jong Un’s special forces.”
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As per Business Standard, the soldier also admitted he was stealing things from Russia to sell and had been caught.
“While working in the barracks, I thought that no one was watching me and put the Russians’ things in my pocket,” the diary read.
“I will no longer trade in other people’s things. I will heroically advance in the forefront and destroy the enemy,” he added.
The diary also displayed the soldier’s utmost loyalty to Kim Jong-Un. Image courtesy: @SOF_UKR
“It is currently unknown whether these are authentic North Korean tactics or whether they were taught this way by the Russians. But this tactic uses live bait,” the Ukrainian military’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) previously wrote on social media as per Newsweek.
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Kyiv Post over the weekend reported that a video was shared on a Ukrainian military Telegram channel of a Ukrainian First Person View (FPV) drone taking incoming from a North Korean soldier.
The video, which was likely taken in Kursk, purportedly shows the North Korean soldier trying to shoot at the UAV.
The drone’s camera shows a small explosion.
Then, the soldier is shown lying on the ground with his face covered with blood.
The outlet quoted InformNapalm intelligence collective as putting out a video showing North Korean soldiers forcibly removing elderly Russian civilians from a home in the village of Mahnovka.
The military source said, “To avoid death from drones, they [North Koreans] decided to take cover with the local population and hide in their houses and drive the old grandparents out into the cold.”
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In December, footage from Kursk showed North Korean troops being attacked by Ukrainian drones.
The soldiers were seen trying to shoot down the drones or swat them away with their rifles before fleeing in panic across open fields.
Why does it matter?
According to Newsweek, the development emphasises that North Korea and Russia are drawing closer particularly on defence.
Analysts view North Korea sending troops to Ukraine as a “significant escalation in the conflict.”
They worry that Moscow is giving North Korea advanced weaponry and technical expertise that could aid its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Ukraine’s 8th SOF recovered a drone detector and a walkie talkie from dead North Korean troops in Kursk. Image courtesy: @SOF_UKR
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said North Korea is set to receive aging Russian MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter jets.
Business Standard quoted also experts as saying that North Korean troops could gain valuable insights from their experiences coming up against US and European equipment in Ukraine particularly drones.
The outlet quoted Western and South Korean intelligence as saying that North Korea had around 12,000 troops in Kursk.
Dorothy Camille Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, told the outlet North Korea “is significantly benefiting from receiving Russian military equipment, technology, and experience, rendering it more capable of waging war against its neighbours.”
However, analysts previously told Newsweek that North Korean soldiers were not much more than “cannon fodder” on the battlefields of Ukraine.
“These human wave tactics that we’re seeing haven’t really been all that effective,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in December. “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.”
“It remains deeply troubling that Putin has decided to use foreign troops on Russian soil to defend that soil, which is a historic move that hasn’t been done for decades,” Kirby added.
Ukraine over the weekend confirmed it captured two soldiers amid fighting in Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend put up images of two heavily bandaged North Korean soldiers in bunk beds.
One of the prisoners has bandaged hands and wrists, while the other wears a bloodied bandage around his jaw.
“Our soldiers have captured North Korean soldiers in Kursk. These are two soldiers who, although wounded, survived, were taken to Kyiv, and are communicating” with Ukrainian security services, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
Zelenskyy has claimed that 3,000 North Korean troops have been killed or wounded in Kursk.
Zelenskyy previously wrote on X, “There is not a single reason for North Koreans to fight and die for Putin. And even after they do, Russia has only humiliation for them.
“This madness must be stopped—stopped by a reliable and durable peace, as well as Russia’s accountability for this cynical war.”
South Korea, on the other hand, says 1,100 North Korean have died.
Russia and North Korea have previously denied that any of Pyongyang’s soldiers are in Ukraine.
With inputs from agencies