Russian soldiers were heard condemning North Korean recruits in intercepted audio recordings

Kyiv
CNN
—

Russian soldiers expressed concerns about the way North Korean soldiers are commanded and supplied with ammunition and military equipment. This is according to leaked broadcasts obtained by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency and published on Friday.

The Russian soldiers speak contemptuously of the arriving North Korean soldiers, codenamed “K Battalion,” and at one point refer to them as “the damn Chinese.”

In the same excerpt, a soldier describes another who was assigned to “meet people.”

“And he’s standing there with his eyes open, damn it,” the soldier says. “He came here and said what the hell he was going to do with them.”

According to Ukrainian defense intelligence, the audio was intercepted by encrypted Russian transmission channels on the night of October 23rd.

Ukraine’s analysis of the intercepts revealed that North Korean troop movements were planned for the morning of October 24 in the area of ​​the Postoyalye Dvory military camp in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise invasion earlier this year.

The intercepted recordings also reveal plans to deploy one interpreter and three senior officers for every 30 North Korean men, which the Russian soldiers condemn in the audio recording.

“The only thing I don’t understand is that there should be three senior officials for every 30 people. Where do we get them from? We have to pull them out,” said a Russian soldier.

“I’m telling you damn, tomorrow there are 77 battalion commanders coming, there are commanders, deputy commanders and so on,” a soldier says in another excerpt.

The intercepted audio follows an announcement by Ukrainian military intelligence on Thursday that a group of North Korean soldiers had been spotted in Russia’s Kursk region, an area that borders Ukraine and where ongoing military operations have taken place.

In a post on its official Telegram account, Ukraine’s defense intelligence said that some North Korean troops who had been trained in Russia’s Far East had made their way to the western Russian region, where Ukraine has maintained a foothold since it began its invasion I caught August.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that he had received a report from Ukraine’s commander-in-chief about the deployment of North Korean military personnel.

“According to intelligence information, Russia will deploy its first North Korean troops to combat zones on October 27 and 28. This is a clear important step in Russia’s escalation, in contrast to all the disinformation circulating in Kazan today,” Zelensky said, criticizing the BRICS summit hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin this week in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan .

The Kremlin had initially rejected allegations of North Korean troop deployments, but on Thursday at the BRICS summit Putin did not deny that Pyongyang had sent soldiers into the country.

“North Korea’s actual involvement in hostilities should not be approached with blind eyes and confused comments, but rather with tangible pressure on Moscow and Pyongyang to abide by the UN Charter and punish escalation,” Zelensky added.

CNN’s Daria Tarasova-Markina and Niamh Kennedy contributed to this report.