Thread by @Korea_Defense

🧵 Interesting excerpts from the @KyivIndependent interview with Ukrainian Rangers, who captured one of the two North Korean soldiers in Kursk.

1) The KPA troops sent to 🇷🇺 aren't starving conscripts eager to defect, like many assumed (despite 🇰🇷&🇺🇦 intel publicly stating otherwise).
They are well-fed, trained & motivated troops of the KPA SOF.
There are 🇰🇷&🇺🇦 reports that wounded/trapped 🇰🇵 troops resort to suicide.

2) The rough appearance of the first KPA POW who died shortly after & a writing discovered on a dead 🇰🇵 may point to the presence of older soldiers & penal transfers. But the troops these 🇺🇦 Rangers frequently encounter seem to be young, fit & motivated.

3) Unsurprisingly, 🇰🇵's properly trained & selected young men perform better in combat than 🇷🇺's forcibly mobilized reservist mobiks & post-2023 kontraktniki lured by high pay, both types usually being middle-aged & beyond, with many being unfit for service.

4) The deployed 🇰🇵 troops likely all come from the 11th Storm Corps (SOF), while some perhaps are from the Reconnaissance General Bureau (military intelligence clandestine ops). Read more about these units here:

5) KPA SOF excel at light infantry work - because that's what they're made for. Their intended role is to infiltrate 🇰🇷 rear areas, eluding ROK military & police by quickly traversing the densely vegetated & mountainous Korean terrain.

6) Now, however, they're being employed by 🇷🇺 commanders as assault infantry on flat, wide, open terrain, facing an enemy who not only knows they're coming - but can see them.
KPA SOF are completely out of their element in these conditions.

7) Handicapped by their inherent isolation from modern tech & world news, 🇰🇵 troops had little understanding of drones. This was compounded by how short their preparation time in 🇷🇺 was, which lasted only one week for the first deployment wave.

8) However, observations by 🇺🇦 troops seem to suggest 🇰🇵 troops are learning & adapting, reportedly using innovative tactics & making use of their excellent marksmanship, taking out more small drones on average than 🇷🇺 troops.

9) The battlefield experiences gained by the KPA will not remain isolated to the troops in Kursk. Not only has 🇰🇵 begun production on 🇷🇺 Lancet drone copies, but have also begun integrating drones for exercises involving all their forces, incl reserves.
rfa.org/english/korea/…

10) It's regrettable that a proposal to deploy a ROK military intelligence & advisory group to 🇺🇦 was shot down by 🇰🇷 opposition in defiance of anything the now-impeached President Yoon's gov did.
At least the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is in close contact with 🇺🇦 intel.

11) Sources:

youtu.be/mCjbEm63POo?si…

google.com/amp/s/m.yna.co…