North Korea is learning modern tactics fighting Ukraine, which should worry its southern neighbor

Back in February, a Ukrainian officer told Business Insider about the crude and often brutal tactics being employed by North Korean troops against Ukrainian positions in Kursk.

Konoval Ihor Ihorovych, the commander of the reserve group of the 4th Company of the 33rd Assault Regiment, said that troops charged in like something out of a movie, and were being used as “cannon fodder.”

But military analysts say that North Korea’s troops are rapidly adapting and appear to be learning valuable battlefield lessons.

Russia acknowledged for the first time this week the role played by North Koreans in fighting against Ukraine.

And in footage released by Russian state media on Monday, North Korean troops were shown training with modern Russian weapons, including a semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun known as the Vepr-12, which contains a modification to take out drones.

These are lessons that North Korea’s southern neighbor, South Korea, is likely watching it acquire with growing concern.

What is North Korea gaining?

Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a historic security pact, where, in exchange for Russian technological and diplomatic support, Kim agreed to aid Russia militarily.

It effectively broke the international isolation imposed by the UN on North Korea to pressure it to dismantle its nuclear weapons.

Deployed to the battlefield in Ukrainian-occupied Kursk, North Korean soldiers have suffered steep losses; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed in February that 4,000 had been killed or injured.

That’s almost half of the 10,000 troops North Korea is estimated to have initially deployed.

But for Kim, it appears to be a price worth paying to strengthen and modernize the country’s military, which hasn’t fought an active war since the 1950s.

Jacob Parakilas, research leader for Defence Strategy, Policy, and Capabilities at RAND, told BI that the experience they are getting — “not only how you operate under fire and taking losses and how you keep operating, but just the sort of psychological impact of what it does to your individual soldiers” — can’t be overstated.

A different type of warfare

North Korean troops are fighting in a war where cutting-edge tactics and technologies are being regularly tested.

Chief among these are the use of drones, which are ubiquitous on the battlefields of Ukraine, engaged in surveillance and attacks.

According to Ukrainian officials, North Korean troops have adapted to travel in small groups to evade them. Major General Vadym Skybytskyi, deputy chief of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence organization, said that North Korean units had initially “advanced in large groups across snowy fields.”

But he told The Guardian that “the next lot won’t do that. They are learning new tactics and how to fight in a drone environment.”

In January, the Wall Street Journal published extracts from the diary of a deceased North Korean soldier obtained by Ukrainian intelligence.

It described tactics for taking out drones, with one soldier acting as bait to lure the drone, and others shooting it out of the sky.

“The bait must maintain a distance of seven meters from the drone,” it said. “The other two should prepare to shoot down the drone from a distance of 10 to 12 meters. When the bait stands still, the drone will stop and it can be shot down.”

Parakilas said these tactics show “they’re figuring out, again, at great cost, the ways to counter modern technology with traditional soldiering and traditional battlefield skills.”

North Korea gains drone deployment knowledge

North Korea’s military isn’t just gaining valuable knowledge in terms of countering drones, it’s also learning how to deploy its own.

Russian assistance likely played a role in the development of a North Korean AI-controlled drone, unveiled in March.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in DC, told BI that this was the first chance North Korea had to see drones used on a battlefield, “particularly small UAVs for reconnaissance, tactical reconnaissance and tactical strikes.”

He said that, depending on the amount of access Russia has allowed, North Korea is probably also gaining insights into the use of drones for longer-range, strategic missions.

Russia has deployed long-range Iranian-made drones against Ukrainian towns and infrastructure far from the front lines, and North Korea appears to be developing models for a similar purpose.

Bermudez also pointed to lessons North Korea is learning in assaulting fortified positions, bridging rivers for tanks, and camouflaging and concealing troops.

Mistakes also provide valuable lessons

Before deploying its troops to Ukraine, North Korea provided Russia with thousands of artillery rounds and ballistic missiles. But these proved notoriously shoddy.

Bermudez said that North Korea is likely drawing lessons from that, too.

“Quality control is always an issue in North Korea,” he said. “The fact that they’ve learned that they’ve had poor quality has probably resulted in an improvement in the manufacture of munitions.”

However, some doubt how quickly North Korea’s military system is capable of learning.

Bermudez said that little is known about how North Korea incorporates front-line experiences into its military doctrines and training. “We just don’t have a good handle on that yet,” he said.

An emboldened Kim Jong Un

North Korea’s alliance with Russia has emboldened Kim in his confrontations with South Korea.

But Parakilas said it’s not clear how well some of the lessons North Korean troops have likely learned in Ukraine would translate into any potential conflict with the South.

Drones, for example, don’t always cope well in the mountainous environments that comprise much of the Korean Peninsula, he said.

“There are parts of the Korean Peninsula where drone performance would be significantly degraded,” he added. “More fundamentally, you’re fighting a very, very different kind of atmosphere.”

Despite this, the battlefield experience North Korean troops are gaining in the world’s most advanced battlefield environment is something that can’t be replicated in training exercises or drills.

“If I were in Seoul and I were watching the North Koreans fight and die, but learn and adapt,” Parakilas said. “I’d be a bit worried.”

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