Frontline report: North Koreans lose one-third of troops in Kursk, deploy Russian grannies as shields

Today there are a lot of interesting updates from the Kursk direction. Here, the Ukrainian forces press forward in their efforts to secure Maknovka, capitalizing on disarray among Russians and North Koreans, with precise drone strikes and coordinated armored assaults.

As the intense clashes continue, North Korean losses in manpower have skyrocketed to over 4,000 soldiers in just under a month, causing even the most well-disciplined North Koreans to start losing hope and lay down their arms.

The goal of the Ukrainian forces in this area is to push Russian forces out of the southern outskirts of Maknovka.

By securing the entirety of Maknovka, the Ukrainians will prevent any further joint Russian and North Korean counteroffensive efforts since they would effectively push them back over the river.

Ukrainians are attempting to take advantage of the continued disarray among Russian troops due to the Ukrainians’ previous missile strike on Russian command posts.

To achieve this, the Ukrainian forces are conducting constant surveillance over the Russian and North Korean rear and frontline positions with drones. Subsequently, this allows them to detect and target Russian positions using FPV kamikaze drones.

Ukrainians then deploy armored vehicles with squads of infantry to dismount and assault the Russian positions. Combat footage from the area reveals that to eliminate holdouts of Russian and North Korean soldiers hiding within houses and fortified positions in Makhnovka, the Ukrainians attach extra powerful packages of explosives to their drones. This allows them to completely demolish Russian positions and eliminate a large number of Russian soldiers hiding within these houses.

Additional combat footage from the area shows that the Ukrainian MRAP armored vehicle approached the Russian positions and laid down suppressive fire for the disembarking soldiers, allowing the Ukrainians to rotate their soldiers safely. At the same time, fresh troops were deployed to take their positions and continue the assault to push the remaining Russians out of the village.

Out of desperation to find better cover and save their lives, the North Korean soldiers decided to use Russian civilians in Maknovka as human shields. Footage recorded by a Ukrainian drone shows how a North Korean soldier kicked out two elderly women from a house to use them as human shields to prevent a drone strike.

The desperation of North Korean soldiers to increase their chances of survival at all costs is a reflection of their losses, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that up to 4,000 out of the initial 12,000 North Koreans have already been killed and wounded since they were deployed to the front. Furthermore, these losses are only exacerbated by the fact that North Korean soldiers often fight to the death and refuse to surrender, as Russian disinformation operations have led them to believe that Ukrainians would mutilate and otherwise violate them if they are taken captive.

However, recently, Ukrainian special forces operators managed to capture the first two North Korean prisoners of war who are currently being treated for their wounds in Kyiv and questioned together with South Korean intelligence operatives serving as translators.

Overall, the Russian and North Korean forces in Makhnovka are still disorganized as a result of the previous Ukrainian HIMARS strikes in Kursk. Even now, they are still fighting to expand their counterattack efforts and eliminate their last remaining holdouts in the village. This resulted in the Ukrainians successfully securing the southern flank of Sudzha and stabilizing their defenses and logistics routes.

With North Koreans already losing over a third of their forces in under a month of combat, it has become ever so clear how Russians use their North Korean allies as human shields, valuing them even less than a regular soldier in the Russian army.

Lastly, intel gained from the investigation of the newly captured North Korean soldiers will likely reveal more opportunities for Ukrainians to strike Russian and North Korean command posts and forces concentrations, as well as give further insights into North Korean operations.

In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.