A drone strike on purported North Korean troops in Kursk.
eighth Special Purpose Regiment seize
According to the newest official estimate from Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation in Kyiv, the North Korean eleventh Army Corps misplaced round 200 troops killed and wounded in a sequence of assaults focusing on Ukrainian positions in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast final weekend.
At least a couple of of these casualties had been inflicted by explosive first-person-view drones sporting Christmas ornaments. A reindeer. A Santa. An elf. A fowl.
Videos of the festive drone strikes, performed by the Ukrainian eighth Special Purpose Regiment deployed to the southwestern fringe of the 250-square-mile salient the Ukrainians carved out of Kursk again in August, appeared on-line on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian drone operators’ darkish humor belies the lethal seriousness of their job. North Korean manpower considerably stiffened Russian assaults in Kursk, permitting the mixed Russian-North Korean pressure to recapture the village of Plekhove, on the japanese fringe of the salient, after three pricey infantry assaults final weekend.
Altogether, the Russians and North Koreans have round 60,000 troops in and round Kursk. The Ukrainians have simply 20,000. But attacking throughout open floor is all the time extra harmful than defending from dug-in positions, so the manpower imbalance solely confers a slight benefit to the Russians and North Koreans.
And that benefit might erode rapidly if Russian and North Korean commanders don’t adapt to Ukrainian strategies. The preliminary assaults over the weekend concerned dismounted infantry strolling in neat strains throughout snowy fields with out a lot obvious help from artillery or plane. The darkly camouflaged North Koreans stood out in opposition to the white snow, making them straightforward targets for Ukrainian FPV drones and cluster shells.
It’s chilly consolation to the North Korean survivors that they at the very least didn’t march into battle below the misunderstanding that standing nonetheless can disguise you from a close-by drone operator’s unblinking gaze—like savannah prey mixing into the encircling grass to flee a lion. The North Koreans have been noticed diving out of the best way of attacking drones—not all the time efficiently.
While some Russian trainees observe dodging incoming FPVs, typically with the assistance of a weird “drone on a rope” coaching help, others clearly have been instructed to freeze in place once they see or hear a drone approaching.
There is ample proof of Russian troopers attempting this tactic—and an equal quantity of proof it doesn’t work. Drones’ cameras are that good. And their operators are that expert.
Dodging might have saved a couple of North Koreans final weekend, however the eleventh Army Corps’ total casualties had been nonetheless startling excessive.
It’s obvious Russian commanders are desirous to obscure the size of the losses. “Despite Russian makes an attempt to cover North Korean failures by fast evacuation, movies of strikes on North Korean troopers, their failures and their corpses are already within the public area,” Kovalenko said.
