A bullet canister similar to the old Soviet ‘punishment battalion’ during World War II.
As North Korea dispatched more than 10,000 large-scale combat troops to Russia, world attention is focused on what kind of variable they will be in the Russia-Ukraine war. Both North Korea and Russia do not officially acknowledge the dispatch of North Korean troops. For different reasons, they are working hard to block information related to the North Korean military deployment from being leaked. From Russia’s perspective, it is a matter of pride that one of the world’s leading military powers was unable to deal with Ukraine alone, so it opened its hands to others. North Korea is concerned that its system will become unstable if it becomes known to the people that it has sent more than 10,000 troops to a battlefield where large-scale sacrifices are expected.
Ukraine, which is dealing with the North Korean military, appears to view the dispatch of troops to North Korea as an opportunity. Ukraine’s argument is that “since countries other than Russia have sent large-scale combat troops to participate in the war, this war has now become an international war and a war of faction clashes.” Therefore, the Western world, especially Korea, should provide arms support to Ukraine. The situation is such that the capabilities of the North Korean military dispatched to Ukraine must be expanded as much as possible. Because of North Korea and Russia’s information control and Ukraine’s disinformation campaign to attract support from the West, it is very difficult to obtain accurate information about what the North Korean military is doing in Kursk. In these conditions, it is most effective to infer the on-site situation by collecting various information and counterinformation and cross-verifying it.
North Korean troops assigned to Russian troops in four areas on the Kursk front
Currently, North Korean troops appear to be assigned to Russian units in four directions based on the Kursk salient occupied by Ukraine. Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service, Ukrainian war correspondent Roman Botskala, Jonas Oman, representative of the non-governmental organization ‘Blue and Yellow’, the Ukrainian Army’s 95th Air Assault Brigade and 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade currently operating in Kursk, and the Russian Army’s 810th Guards Naval Army Brigade. This is the result of the author’s collection and analysis of information disclosed by related parties on social networking services (SNS).
First, it is confirmed that North Korean troops are deployed to the 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade of the Russian Airborne Forces in the eastern region of the Kursk salient. The deployment of North Korean troops larger than the battalion level has also been confirmed in three units: the 810th Guards Naval Brigade under the Black Sea Fleet on the north of the salient, the 106th Guards Airborne Division, and the 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment on the northwest and west of the salient. Several sources and the Institute for War Studies (ISW) analyzed that Russia did not organize and deploy North Korean troops as independent units, but integrated them into its own units. In other words, the North Korean military is not deployed into battle while maintaining its system and chain of command, but is supporting operations under the control of the Russian military.
According to a post on social media by an official from the Russian Army’s 810th Guards Naval Brigade, 30 North Korean soldiers are organized into one group. It is said that six Russian control and support personnel will be attached, including three control officers, one interpreter, one person in charge of heavy weapons, and one person in charge of supply. Looking at the size of the troops, it is as if one group was organized into platoons. However, looking at the presence of control and command personnel from the Russian military, it is not a normal rifle platoon. In particular, it is abnormal that there are three control officers. This part reminds me of the old Soviet penal battalions (штрафной батальон), the so-called ‘Strappbat (штрафбат)’, which carried out suicidal assaults on enemy lines under the control of commanders, political officers, and war officers.
For every 30 North Korean troops, 3 Russian officers are stationed under surveillance.
![On October 18 (local time), footage of troops presumed to be North Korean troops moving to a Russian training ground was revealed on the X (old Twitter) account of Russian media outlet Sirena. [X=뉴스1]](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/11/16/130438568.1.jpg)
Strafbad is a systemthat began with Order No. 227 of Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin in July 1942, when the German-Soviet War was in full swing. At the time, Stalin said, “No Soviet soldier should retreat. He instructed, “Anyone who retreats should be defined as an ‘enemy of the people’ and punished.” Accordingly, commanders and political officers were given the authority to summarily dispose of anyone who disobeyed orders and left their posts. Here, summary punishment took the form of shooting people on the spot, but in many cases, they were literally sent to Strawbard as a ‘bullet cannon’. This is because Stalin pushed for the operation of penal units, saying, “It is a waste of ammunition to be used to shoot enemies of the people.” The prisoner soldiers assigned to Strappbad had to charge at the front lines of the battlefield, receiving only one rifle and minimal ammunition. In effect, it was a suicide assault mission.
When Strabbad charged, behind them were political officers and military officers armed with machine guns. When the enemy hesitated in fear of the enemy in front of him, the commander’s machine gun fired fire. In the punishment unit, you could be pardoned if you successfully completed 10 assault missions. However, very few people actually completed the mission and survived. Even though they suffered near-total damage and won the battle, the major credit went to another unit. These are elite units with the title of guard, who watch for an opportunity behind the punishment unit and rush in to plant their flag when the situation becomes favorable.
Experts analyzing the recent Russian-Ukrainian war situation are paying attention to the fact that Russia assigned North Korean troops to units that use the title of guard. The analysis is that it is similar to the Soviet penal units of the past. As explained earlier, the units that took over North Korean troops are the 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade, 106th Guards Airborne Division, 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment, and 810th Guards Naval Land Brigade, all of which use the Guard title. Russia, ignoring the ranks and positions of North Korean military officers and soldiers, created groups of 30 people and assigned three Russian military control officers to them. It appears that the intention is to use the North Korean military in the same concept as the Soviet Union’s Strafbard.
A photo of supplies posted on social media by a Russian military blogger, claiming to have been taken in the Kursk region on November 8 (local time), also shows that there is a high possibility that the North Korean army will be used as a cannon fodder like Strawbad in the past. The supply in question is a machine gun imported by Russia from North Korea, and is the ‘Type 73 Battalion Machine Gun’ currently used by the North Korean military as a squad support weapon. This machine gun is a copy of the Czech-made Vz.26 machine gun made by North Korea. Kim Il-sung, who highly evaluated the performance of the Vz.26 used by the Chinese military during the Korean War, ordered its development. It does not mean that it is a machine gun used by a battalion, but ‘battalion’ in the sense of “kill the enemy in large numbers.”
Originally, North Korea received an official license from the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and produced the PK machine gun, which was the main machine gun of the Soviet Army at the time, under the name ‘Type 68 machine gun’. The Type 68 had the same structure as the PK machine gun, so the ammunition and parts were compatible, and a bullet belt feeding system was adopted. However, the Type 73 machine gun, which began production in 1973, was designed based on the Vz.26 rather than the PK, so it had many incompatible parts and was heavier.
Why did North Korea introduce a new gun, the Type 73 anti-tank machine gun, while it was producing Soviet-style machine guns under license? This is because the PK, a belt-fed machine gun, was not suitable for infantry use in assault warfare. The PK machine gun is designed to fire by inserting a 100-round bullet into the cartridge and attaching it to the gun. In this case, the weight of the machine gun with the cartridge attached reaches 13 kg. It is virtually impossible for North Korean soldiers, who are small in stature, to run into enemy lines carrying weapons of this weight and fire. For this reason, North Korea paid attention to the design of the Vz.26 machine gun, which uses a 30-round magazine, and created the Type 73 machine gun that imitated it.
The North Korean military is both a tool and a slave to the Kim Jong-un regime.
<figure class="img_cont articlePhotoC" style="max
![The role of the North Korean military dispatched to Russia appears to be a cannon fodder, similar to the 'punishment unit' that the former Soviet Union sent into battle with the Nazi German army during World War II. The photo shows Soviet troops engaged in combat with Nazi German troops. [위키피디아]](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/11/16/130438569.1.jpg)
Like its predecessor, the Type 68 machine gun, the Type 73 machine gun can be used like a regular machine gun by attaching a cartridge belt, but it is impossible to fire with cartridges attached. So, a 30-round magazine was attached to the top of the gun. North Korea judged that this type of machine gun was more advantageous in assault warfare. The Type 73 machine gun was created to use the same tactic used by the Chinese army during the Korean War, which was to advance while suppressing fire in a row. In fact, if you look at photos or videos of North Korean soldiers practicing shooting with a Type 73 machine gun, they appear to be shooting ‘aimed fire’ by holding the bipod under the barrel with the butt under their armpits. The mission of a soldier armed with this machine gun is to suppress the enemy so that he cannot raise his head when charging. Therefore, there is no need for precise aiming, and aiming fire is sufficient.
The Type 73 battalion machine gun supplied to the Kursk Front is different from the Russian PKM machine gun in its structure and operation. Therefore, it is highly likely that it is for fire support for the North Korean military, not for supplying the Russian military. This machine gun was created to be used in single-line assault tactics. The organization of the North Korean army deployed in Kursk is similar to that of the Soviet Union’s Strawbad. Recently, the Russian army is running a tactical assault due to a lack of armored vehicles to break through and destroy key points of the enemy’s defense line. Considering this, we can infer the mission of the North Korean troops dispatched. It’s a bullet canister.
In fact, using the North Korean military as a cannon fodder is a win-win deal for both Russia and North Korea. Currently, Russia is in dire need of ‘people’. This is because there have been more than 700,000 casualties in the war over the past three years, and there is a serious manpower shortage not only in the military but also in industry due to continued recruitment and ‘secret mobilization’. In this situation, the burden of not only immediate labor costs but also compensation and pensions that must be paid when injured or killed in action is too great to use Russians as military service resources. Accordingly, Russia is increasingly using mercenaries from foreign countries, especially from underdeveloped countries. Russian contract soldiers have to pay almost 70 million won for a one-year contract. On the other hand, mercenaries from underdeveloped countries can be hired for less than half that cost. Since they are mercenaries, there is no need for Russia to pay compensation or pension even if they die.
On the other hand, the only thing left in North Korea, the poorest country, are troops. From the perspective of North Korean leadership, including Kim Jong-un, soldiers are nothing more than tools for ‘defending the leader to the death’ and slaves for their own luxurious lifestyle. Previously, the North Korean military maintained a large number of troops with the intention of dealing with the ROK-US combined forces as a manpower-intensive army when war broke out. However, once nuclear weapons were completed, these troops became surplus assets that consumed only military provisions. Dispatch of troops to Russia, where he can make a lot of money from immediately useless troops and strengthen nuclear and strategic weapons,is truly a profitable business for Kim Jong-un. In that respect, there is a possibility that North Korea will further increase the scale of its troop deployment, which currently stands at 11,000 to 12,000. This means that a large number of North Korean soldiers may die on the other side of the world.
As casualties increase, North Korea’s strategic weapons capabilities increase.
This is why the Korean government must hasten military support for Ukraine. According to our Constitution, North Korea is an anti-state organization, and North Korean residents are citizens held captive by an anti-state organization. In that respect, South Korea must engage in psychological warfare and induce desertion so that North Korean soldiers dispatched to the Russia-Ukraine war can escape that hell alive. These measures are closely related to Korea’s immediate security interests. The more troops North Korea sends to Russia, the greater the return Kim Jong-un can receive. The Kim Jong-un regime can increase the level of threat to South Korea by receiving strategic weapons technology from Russia.
To prevent this, we need to put pressure on Russia, not North Korea. If Russia threatens the safety of Seoul by providing strategic weapons technology to North Korea, we must inform Ukraine that we can also provide useful military force. For example, if a strike weapon like the Hyunmoo-2B, which can destroy the Kremlin with a single blow, is provided, it will be a stern warning. The longer the South Korean government and political circles delay in making a decision, the more North Korean soldiers, who are constitutionally our citizens, will die. Also, in exchange for their lives, North Korea will acquire useful military technology from Russia and threaten South Korea’s security.
〈This article Weekly Donga It was published in issue 1463〉
Lee Il-woo, Secretary General of the Independent Defense Network
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What are the key reasons for North Korea’s introduction of the Type 73 anti-tank machine gun?
North Korea’s decision to introduce the Type 73 anti-tank machine gun while simultaneously producing Soviet-style machine guns under license stems from specific operational needs and tactical considerations. The PK machine gun, while effective, was deemed unsuitable for the infantry tactics employed by North Korean forces, especially in assault warfare. The weight and design of the PK made it cumbersome for soldiers, particularly given their smaller stature. As a result, the introduction of a lighter, more manageable weapon that could be used effectively in close combat situations became a priority.
The Type 73, inspired by the Vz.26 design, employed a 30-round magazine, allowing for more mobility compared to the belt-fed PK. This design choice facilitated the type of rapid, advancing fire tactics reminiscent of strategies used by Chinese forces during the Korean War. North Korean troops could advance while providing suppressive fire without the complications of managing a heavy belt-fed system.
Moreover, the context of North Korea’s military deployment alongside Russia in the ongoing conflict highlights a broader strategic rationale. The manpower shortages faced by Russia due to casualties from the war have created opportunities for North Korea to deploy its troops, seen as expendable resources by its leadership. This collaboration appears mutually beneficial: Russia gains manpower while North Korea earns economic resources and potentially militarily strategic advantages.
The implication of these developments for regional security, particularly concerning South Korea, underlines the urgent need for proactive military support for Ukraine to counterbalance any strategic advances made by North Korea through its collaboration with Russia. Furthermore, emphasizing psychological warfare and escape avenues for North Korean soldiers may help mitigate the immediate human cost while addressing broader security concerns for the Korean Peninsula. As tensions evolve, the South Korean government must consider its responses carefully, recognizing that each decision carries significant consequences for national security and stability.