North Korean Troops Retreating from the Frontlines due to Heavy Losses

In June 2024, Vladimir Putin returned from North Korea with a bilateral security agreement that surprised the world even though North Korea had been shipping millions of shells to Russia since 2023.

Then in November 2024 thousands of North Korean troops entered the field of battle on the frontlines of Kursk to support the offensive to push the Ukrainians out.

Videos soon emerged of North Korean troops killed by drones and captured by Ukrainian forces.

In the middle of last week, Ukraine reported that North Korean troops were leaving the battlefield. The major news outlets, including the New York Times, confirmed this by the end of the week.

On January 22, 2025, the BBC announced that of the 11,000 North Korean troops on the battlefield in Kursk, 4,000 were casualties with 1,000 dead. That’s an approximate 40% casualty rate.

According to the BBC, the North Korean elite unit called the Storm Corps entered the fray with little to no training and equipment. They were sent to the same meat grinder as Russian troops.

“These are barely trained troops led by Russian officers who they don’t understand,” says the former British Army tank commander, Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.

“Quite frankly they don’t stand a chance. They are being thrown into the meat grinder with little chance of survival. They are cannon fodder, and the Russian officers care even less for them than they do for their own men.”

North Korea has realized this too.

The New York Times confirmed on January 30th that Ukrainian and U.S. officials have reported that North Korean troops have not been seen on the battlefield for two weeks. American officials do not know if this is a permanent or temporary decision. Because of the heavy casualties, the Russians could be rethinking how to deploy them or give them training before returning them to the battlefield.

However, according to the Irish Star reporting in December, a Kremlin insider leaked Kim Jong Un’s disappointment with the way North Korean troops have been deployed by Russia on the battlefield and the heavy subsequent casualty rates.

Could North Korea be pulling its troops out themselves? Could this be the start of cracks in the friendly relations between the Hermit regime and Russia?

We will have to wait to see Russia and North Korea’s next steps. In the meantime, Ukraine has shown it has the ability and resolve to protect and defend its nation using innovative battle tactics that make it a valuable and worthy ally to the United States and NATO.

With the growing threat of coordination and alliances between our enemies like Iran and North Korea to weaken us, it is in the United States' best interest to weaken them first by supporting Ukraine’s military and peace objectives. This is the only America-First and Peace Through Strength Policy the Trump Administration should entertain.