Russian soldiers complain about North Korean troops: intercepted calls

On October 30, 2024By Littum

WASHINGTON − Ukraine spies say they intercepted phone calls showing chaos as Russia works to integrate North Korean troops into its military operations.

Some of the calls were intercepted by troops involved in defending Kursk, a region of Russia on Ukraine’s northern border where Ukrainian troops seized territory in August, according to Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Russian military assigned one translator and three Russian servicemen to every 30 North Korean soldiers, the spy agency said it learned from the calls.

But Russian soldiers on the wiretapped calls appeared to doubt they would have enough commanders to lead the new units, or enough weapons and ammunition to arm them 979 days into Moscow’s invasion.

In a call that said spy agency was recorded in Kursk, a Russian soldier was “outraged” by a commander who ordered troops to supply Russian armored vehicles – already in short supply – to the newly arrived North Korean troops.

“I will kill him today, yes, after the Koreans,” one soldier says, according to the audio.

On another call, a soldier complained that there were not enough translators. “We all work as translators now,” he said.

In the sound of explosive charges, another soldier rudely referred to the troops as “Chinese”.

The agency said it also learned that Russian police stopped a truck full of North Korean soldiers heading to Kursk on Sunday because the driver did not have a “combat order.”

It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to strengthen ties and share intelligence about the roughly 12,000 North Korean troops he said will move to Russian military bases.

Ukraine and South Korea plan to “exchange delegations,” he said in a mail to X.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s foreign minister arrived in eastern Russia and will travel to Moscow for her second visit within six weeks, Russian state media reported, although the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin did not plan to meet with her.

The Pentagon said Monday that about 10,000 North Korean troops are now at military posts in Russia’s eastern region and may be deployed to Kursk in the coming weeks — up from its estimate last week of 3,000.

“We are increasingly concerned that Russia intends to use these soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast near the border with Ukraine,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday.

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