Russia-Ukraine War
Russia-Ukraine War
Russia-Ukraine War
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The Ukrainian forces have described the type of enemy, the fight with unknown tactics and few characteristics to withdraw.
By Marc Santora and Helene Cooper
Marc Santora went to the Russian border to meet the Ukrainians, North Korea’s troops in Kursk. Helene Cooper informed Washington.
The North Korean soldiers fighting for Moscow in Russia’s Kursk region are assigned their own patches of land to assault. Unlike their Russian counterparts, they advance with almost no armored vehicles in support.
When they attack, they do not pause to regroup or retreat, as the Russians often do when they start taking heavy losses, Ukrainian soldiers and American officials say. Instead, they move under heavy fire across fields strewed with mines and will send in a wave of 40 or more troops.
If they enter a position, they are not verified to exit. They leave this to Russian reinforcements, while they retreat and prepare for some other assault.
Unique tactics and habits also evolved. During combat opposed to a drone, the North Koreans send a soldier as a decoy so that others can shoot him. If they are seriously wounded, they were invited to explode a grenade to be captured alive, holding it under the neck of one hand on the spit as Ukrainian infantrymen approach.
Sent to Russia to join with Moscow’s troops in Kursk, the North Koreans essentially operate as a separate fighting force, the Ukrainian soldiers and American officials said — distinct in language, training and military culture.
“It’s partly two different militaries that have never trained or operated together and partly, I think, Russian military culture, which is, shall we say, not highly respectful of the abilities and norms and operations of partner forces,” said Celeste A. Wallander, who until Inauguration Day was the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for international security affairs.
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