Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) says North Korean troops were deployed to the Donetsk region to record defects in the ammunition the DPRK had supplied to Russia and to monitor its use.
According to the Militarnyi website Kovalenko said, “The presence of the DPRK military in the Donetsk region is mainly related to small numbers of engineer troops and is due to the fact that a large amount of ammunition from the DPRK is of poor quality.”
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He added that Ukrainian intelligence indicates these troops accompany the ammunition deliveries, record defects as they occur, and monitor how the Russian army deploys, stores and uses its ammunition.
There are many media comments on the poor quality of much of the estimated 5 million rounds of artillery ammunition and dozens of KN-23 / Hwasong 11 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) provided by North Korea.
According to a May 7 report in the military issues news outlet The War Zone almost half of the DPRK’s SRBMs fail to reach their programmed destination or explode in midair once launched.
A December 2023 report in Business Insider said that Russian forces operating around the southern Kherson region were complaining that the poor quality of North Korea’s artillery ammunition was so bad it was damaging the guns and mortar barrels and even injuring some of their colleagues.
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As Kyiv Post reported on Friday Oct. 4 a Ukrainian missile strike against Russian troops in the Donetsk region on the day before killed 20 troops, including six North Koreans and injuring three others. It is likely these were part of the ammunition “quality team.” A source told RBC-Ukraine that the North Korean military had come to Donbas to “exchange experience” with Russia.
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