What the North Koreans took into battle against Ukraine

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SUMY REGION, Ukraine — "Resistance is futile." "Surrender." "You're completely surrounded and can no longer keep fighting."

The phrases, printed in Korean with rough Russian transliterations on a worn piece of paper that Ukrainian troops found off a dead North Korean soldier this month, give a striking glimpse into how Russia seems to have prepared their new allies to take Ukrainian prisoners during their assaults on the front lines.

Ukrainian troops are using papers and other captured materials found on the battlefield to gain insight into the thousands of North Korean soldiers who have been attacking their positions in recent weeks, as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine intensifies on a global scale.

Details from captured items and soldier testimony portray the North Korean forces as highly motivated, organized, well-trained, and better equipped than Russian infantry, despite taking heavy losses.

The situation in Ukraine is becoming more concerned about collecting evidence of North Korea's involvement in the conflict, especially since Donald Trump is set to take office on January 20. As president, Trump had met several times with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his previous term and has vowed to end the war.

These items are crucial because Ukrainian troops have struggled to capture and interrogate North Koreans during the fighting. In contrast, Russian soldiers, according to Ukrainian accounts, often surrender willingly, whereas the North Koreans have typically fought until they are killed or used grenades to take their own lives rather than be captured.

Ukrainian special forces troops showed Washington Post reporters a list of 23 Korean and Russian phrases, along with handwritten New Year's letters attributed to Kim, as well as body armor, equipment, first aid kits, military IDs, a shovel, a Ukrainian knife, and two modern Russian assault rifles recently recovered from dead North Korean troops.

Vlad, 31, a member of the 1st Battalion of Ukraine's 8th Special Operations Forces Regiment, the unit that showed the gear and documents to The Post, stated that Russia seems to have adopted a "best for the guest" approach when training their allies for combat.

“He stated that the Russians were significantly less well equipped. He felt that the Russians were trying to show off for the North Koreans.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated this month that up to 4,000 North Korean soldiers may have been killed or wounded in recent weeks, with only two captured. Those two men, both wounded, have been taken into custody in Kyiv, where Zelensky said they are being questioned and receiving medical attention.

North Korean attacks have been largely confined to a small area in the western Russian region of Kursk, which has been under Ukrainian control since last August. In recent days, despite relentless fighting that has been going on for weeks, North Korean troops have essentially stopped showing up on the battlefield, according to Ukrainian troops, even as Russian forces continue their attacks.

Their sudden disappearance might indicate they are reorganizing and re-evaluating their next steps, or it could be a result of widespread injuries and fatigue following recent battles.

“They're licking their wounds,” said Vitalii, 25, another soldier in the special forces battalion who spent eight hours locked in a firefight with North Korean troops last month.

The two handwritten pages relaying messages from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were dated from Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. The documents were independently translated by The Post.

The origin of the notes, which conveyed New Year's greetings and thanked soldiers for fighting on behalf of their homeland, remained unclear. They could have been sent from Pyongyang or written by North Korean soldiers who heard their commanders read messages from Kim aloud.

You experienced the harsh realities of war and the pride of winning hard-fought battles, many heroic moments, the true sense of brotherhood and love for your country, all so far from home," one of the messages read. "I'm struggling to find the right words to thank you for your unwavering commitment and endless hard work.

“None, you significantly impacted this endeavor comrades,” the message conveyed.

A small notebook carried by a soldier was discovered recently, containing handwritten verses to patriotic North Korean songs. "My fate is forever tied to the fate of my homeland," one of the lyrics read.

The fact that the soldiers carried these messages in their pockets during missions indicates that the Ukrainian troops are much more motivated by ideology than Russian soldiers, many of whom are fighting for large salaries on a contract basis.

The Russians did not even try to hide from Ukrainian drones. Many of them were quickly killed in the initial attacks, but as the fighting continued, the new Russian troops proved to be well prepared for combat, physically fit and skilled marksmen, according to the Ukrainians.

In mid-December, Vitalii and eight other soldiers from his unit were sent into Kursk with two objectives: one was to secure control over the Ukrainian positions along a tree line; the other was to take a North Korean prisoner.

Upon entering, 24-year-old Dmytro quickly made eye contact with North Korean soldiers only 20 meters away and took action.

For the next eight hours, he stated, the North Koreans – wearing white camouflage to blend in with the snow – did not stop returning fire. The Ukrainians could distinctly hear one voice giving orders in Korean, his tone occasionally becoming more urgent, they said. They only heard a Russian voice once, shouting: “Stop! Don’t go!”

The North Korean troops, who had previously captured other Ukrainian positions in Kursk, seemed caught off guard by the resistance put up by the nine Ukrainian special forces troops and four infantrymen at the position, soldiers involved in the battle explained. However, the North Koreans also fought fiercely and aggressively, showcasing advanced warfare techniques.

Thirty-five-year-old Ukrainian soldiers Vitalii and Volodymyr eventually identified one soldier they believed they could capture. They shot and wounded him, then Vitalii dragged him to the Ukrainian position, where a medic stabilized him. For four hours, they kept him alive, hoping he would be their first North Korean prisoner of war.

As the Ukrainians fell back later that day, the North Koreans launched a second attack. Amid chaos caused by drones, artillery fire and small arms, their prisoner and one of the Ukrainian soldiers were fatally hit. News reporters saw images of the body, which the troops checked out and then passed along to Ukrainian authorities for processing.

The body caught the attention of local and foreign officials, the soldiers reported, noting that both British and South Korean officials swabbed the body for DNA evidence of North Korean involvement in the fighting.

Their group hasn't directly come across North Korean soldiers since, but Viktor, the 30-year-old commander of the special forces group that was in that battle, said they can already see how they're "adapting" to the battlefield.

“They're aiming to become smarter, not behave like a group mindlessly following one another," Viktor said.

Amed Khan, an American philanthropist who directly supports Ukrainian special forces units, showed The Post a separate cache of North Korean documents he said Ukrainian troops had seized in Kursk, which he later had translated.

The Post was unable to confirm the legitimacy of the documents in question, but they seemed to match other North Korean records reviewed by The Post and the accounts of battles were in line with Ukrainian assessments of North Korean fighting tactics.

The reports, typed in Korean, indicate that North Korean soldiers are recording their combat experiences in detail and seem to be learning from the battlefield to improve their understanding of new technologies. Ukraine is warning that Pyongyang views this situation as a chance to gain practical combat experience that could be useful in a future conflict with Western countries.

As suggested by Viktor, they also seem to be learning from their errors.

According to a document, in contemporary warfare, with real-time reconnaissance and drone strikes being carried out, troops that are not divided into smaller groups of two to three members risk suffering substantial casualties from enemy drones and artillery.

The reports also detailed some North Korean soldiers' behavior, saying they had killed Ukrainian soldiers who tried to surrender, a move that seemed to infuriate the Ukrainians and ultimately prolonged the fighting. The documents stated that some North Korean soldiers repeatedly risked their own safety by rushing to rescue their injured comrades, resulting in additional losses.

According to one report, North Korean troops had trouble because they weren't given "crucial information such as enemy strongholds, drone launch sites, or artillery positions, and so entered the battlefield unprepared."

Khan said he hopes Trump will urge Pyongyang to back out of the conflict and "explain to everyone that it's in no one's interest... [for North Korean troops] to be getting killed seven time zones away from home on the border of Ukraine."

Andrew Jeong and So Jin Jung of Seoul contributed to this report.