Does a ‘Warning from Kursk’ Show Reality of North Korea’s Russian Misadventure?

On Thursday, the pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel 'ExileNova' released a two-minute video titled “Warning from Kursk.” The video shows what is said to be an unnamed, badly wounded North Korean soldier who says he was the only survivor of a 40-man unit that was decimated by a Ukrainian artillery and drone attack in the Kursk region of Russia.

The footage shows the man, lying in a hospital bed his head and face wrapped in bandages that appear to be soaked soaked with blood and pus and a nasal catheter held in place with another dressing.

Needless to say, the video was rapidly picked up by other social media who were split between those pro-Ukrainian sites who said it was genuine and those pro-Kremlin bloggers who said it was faked propaganda.

While Kyiv Post is unable to confirm the veracity of the video it is interesting that the South Korean media outlets News Naver and JongAng say that although it was difficult to make out everything the man said, both agreed that he was speaking with a definite North Korean accent.

In the video he claims that he and his comrades had been lied to by the commander of the Russian unit they were attached to, vented his frustrations with President Putin, and urged his compatriots to stay home.”

He said that they had been assigned to guard a defensive position somewhere in Kursk where they were told they would be “safe from attack as long as we were in the defensive position… that we would not be needed to participate on the front line.”

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He said that once their position came under attack by Ukrainian forces, “the Russian military forced us to participate in the [counter] offensive,” which he called the Battle of Kursk. He said that there was no plan claiming, “The Russians did not conduct any reconnaissance before the attack and left us without weapons to defend ourselves.”

The man also said, “When Ukraine started attacking all 40 of our unit were launched into the attack, they were all killed including my friends Hyuk-cheol and Gyeong-hwan – who had their heads blown off by shrapnel.”

He went on, “I was only able to survive by hiding under their corpses. My grandfather told me stories about the Fatherland Liberation War [Korean War 1950-53], but I didn’t know it would be like this. In reality my comrades were simply sacrificed, used as mere fodder… historical material.”

The soldier continued, “The Ukrainian soldiers were well-armed with the latest weapons and are highly motivated… but the Russian army has lost too many weapons and equipment, so it just sends waves of soldiers like us recklessly into the offensive.”

He adds, “I saw mountains of Russian soldiers’ bodies with my own eyes, as well as destroyed defensive positions,” before concluding, “This is truly the evil of this world -

Putin will lose this war.”

Jonas Ohman, head of the Lithuanian non-profit organization (NGO) Blue-Yellow which is providing support to Ukrainian forces in the area said they had seen North Korean military in Kursk as far back as Oct. 25. He is also quoted by the JonAng news site as saying the North Korean soldier was carrying documents that identified him as being from the Buryat region, which lends weight to previously suggestions Russia was disguising the identity of Pyongyang’s troops.

In an interview on Thursday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “So far, North Korean troops have not participated in the battle. They are preparing to engage [in Kursk],” but said there had been no confirmation of any exchange of fire between Ukrainian and North Korean troops or reports of any North Korean casualties. However, he said that the fighting would soon become a reality “in a matter of days, not weeks or months.”