Russian soldiers have come to recognize the overhead whirring sound of drones’ rotors, which often indicates that they have been spotted and are about to be attacked. But the North Korean soldiers, who have been recently deployed on the frontlines, might be in for a shock as they face the Ukrainian drones.
The North Korean military’s quest for hands-on combat experience might come at an expensive price. As the soldiers from the northern half of the Korean peninsula reach the Ukraine-Russia frontlines, they will face the Kamikaze drones deployed by the Ukrainian forces, something that even Russians took a while to get used to.
Moscow aided North Korea in fighting the Korean War 70 years ago by supplying weapons and pilots; now, history has come full circle.
The 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been in Russia since October, and it is surmised that the battlefield will serve as a laboratory to test the new weapons and gain combat experience. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on X that the first lot of the North Korean troops is expected to be deployed very soon.
For the Russian infantrymen, FPV’s dropping munitions has been their biggest threat, making it difficult for them to move to and from the trenches. Over the two and a half years of war, several videos have been released where an FPV is chasing soldiers running helter-skelter in the face of the unrelenting drone assault.
Now, it remains to be seen if the North Korean soldiers come prepared to deal with Ukrainian drone warfare.
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The First-Person View drone, which can cost as little as US $500 or less, has wreaked havoc among the Russian forces. An inexpensive drone can easily fly across the front line and take out an enemy tank by exploiting its vulnerability, such as an open hatch, the engine, or ammunition stored in the turret.
Now, the reports are coming that the North Korean military units will be deployed to the Kursk region in Russia. This would be the first major war in decades that North Korean troops will be fighting.
Apart from the modern tactics, it will be the first time that the North Korean military will be experiencing drone warfare, a knowledge that can easily be used in the Korean theatre.
The war in Ukraine, entering its third calendar year, has been known for the unprecedented deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles, ranging from those that can fit in the palm to drones weighing more than 1,000 pounds. The drones have been used to track the enemy and to guide the artillery and bombs to targets.
Every day, the two warring countries release the footage of their drones destroying weapon platforms worth millions of dollars.
Drones have been used by the militaries for a long time, but it has been the sheer scale on which they have been deployed in the ongoing conflict and how the technology has been embedded into the Ukrainian military structure that has made the militaries across the world to sit back and observe their transformative impact of drones.
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Almost every fighting brigade in Ukraine’s military has an assault drone company, while most units have small reconnaissance drones.
The Ukrainian government plans to manufacture a million FPV drones in 2024. To put that into context, it is around double the number of artillery shells supplied by the entire European Union in 2023.
Also, the FPVs are more accurate than most artillery as they are guided to their target. This allows the FPVs to chase and hit moving vehicles that would otherwise have been able to evade shells.
The transformative use of drones has greatly stemmed Russian advances despite the vast mismatch between the two countries’ military prowess. Expensive weapon platforms like tanks and artillery have been deployed away from the frontline.
Long Range Drones
In the last two and a half years, Ukraine has managed to develop drones to strike deep inside Russia to compensate for its lack of long-range missiles.
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At the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian long-range drones were brought down by superior Russian electronic warfare systems, but this has changed since the beginning of the war. Now, Ukraine has been able to strike targets deep within Russian territory, including factories and oil refineries.
Testing Ground For New Weapons
The war at Europe’s doorstep has become a testing ground for new technologies and tactics. Countries all over the world have been drawing lessons from the conflict in the field of drones, unmanned boats, long-range fires, and electronic warfare.
In a world that is getting polarised by the day, the growing proximity between Russia and North Korea could mean that the latter could pick up tactics that can be used against the United States and South Korea.
Growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea has been the cause of consternation in the US and Ukraine. North Korea has supplied KN-23, one of the series of nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missiles that North Korea has developed and tested in recent years.
The missile is said to be one of the main weapons that North Korea would use against South Korea should a war break out in the peninsula. The data collected from the Ukrainian battlefield will go a long way in improving the missile’s effectiveness.
Maj Gen (Retd) Mandip Singh told the EurAsian Times that the North Korean Army has despatched troops to Russia in accordance with Article 4 of the treaty signed between the two leaders in June 2024.
However, it must be clear that the North Korean Army is still equipped with outdated equipment largely of Soviet Era origin, has limited war experience, and is untested in conventional wars. In fact, most of the 1.3 million-strong Army is deployed in a border guarding role along the border with South Korea.
Such an untrained force, with obsolete equipment and no joint training or combat experience with any other military, is unlikely to be committed to active battle.
I think they will relieve Russian border guarding units deployed elsewhere, as they are fairly well-trained in this role. This will free up troops and create reserves for the Russian Army to prepare for further escalation, especially as NATO continues its relentless support of Ukraine.
