Cooperation between North Korea and Russia is intensifying. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promised to send Putin 12,000 soldiers to help fight Ukraine. But the Russian military is not happy with the arrival of the North Korean soldiers. This is evident from intercepted audio clips in which the North Koreans are heavily insulted.
Russian soldiers express concern about the way North Korean soldiers are directed and immediately provided with ammunition and military equipment. After all, after a short training period, they will be sent to the front in the name of Russia. But that is not to the liking of the Russian military. This is according to leaked information intercepted by the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Agency. The Russian soldiers talk disdainfully about the incoming North Korean soldiers, code-named the “K Battalion,” and at one point call them “the f****** Chinese.”
The audio, by the way, reveals plans to deploy one interpreter and three senior officers for every 30 North Korean men. “The only thing I don’t understand is that there are three senior officers for 30 men. Where do we get them?” says one Russian soldier. Another can be heard on the audio saying of the Koreans, “What on earth should we do with them?”
The intercepted audio followed an announcement last Thursday from Ukrainian military intelligence that a group of North Korean soldiers have been spotted in Russia’s Kursk region, an area bordering Ukraine where military operations are underway.
