After three months of intense propaganda the CIA decided to bury an Ukrainian disinformation scheme and announced to ‘pull North Korean troops off the front line’.
Well. How did North Koreans get to the front line in the first place?
On October 14 the former president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelinski initiated an information-operation designed to increase support for Ukraine. He alleged, without evidence, that Russia planned to involve North Korea into the war.
U.S. financed media outlets in Ukraine soon propped up these rumors by citing ‘sources in Ukraine’s special services’. More anonymous ‘sources’ chimed in and soon there was talk of 3,000 soldiers from North Korea joining the fight. There was however zero evidence that anything like was ever planned or happened.
I thus remarked:
I regard the whole claim of North Korean troops in Russia as a fake news story and I am sure that most experts will follow me in that judgment.
However, today U.S. media manage to play up the nonsense:
Why North Korea is sending soldiers to the Russian front lines – Washington Post
Sending solders to help Russia’s war effort against Ukraine could earn valuable foreign currency for Kim Jong Un’s regime and bolster their strengthening ties.
…I do not believe that any politician or military in the west will believe that nonsense which is again solely sourced to Ukrainian military intelligence claims. But there is clear campaign by the Ukrainian government to make the issue stick. What is its hope? To induce South Korea to send its forces to fight North Koreans on the Ukrainian border with Russia?
A few days later it emerged that the whole Ukrainian ‘North Korea’ information-operation was based on a U.S. plan:
At the time of writing the above I did not know that the idea for this campaign came from RAND, the Pentagon’s think tank which often proposes strategic ideas. In a commentary about Russian/North Korean and Chinese cooperation published on October 11, three days before the start of Zelenski’s campaign, a RAND analyst wrote:
What Should the United States Do?
Given the differences in the objectives of Russia, China, and North Korea, the United States should be mounting major information operations against these three countries to highlight their differences and fuel distrust among them.
…
[T]he United States should recognize that North Korean military advisors are supporting Russian use of North Korean military supplies in occupied areas of Ukraine.
…
This new cooperation between Russia and North Korea is hardly a signal of a budding long-term alliance and U.S. information campaigns could help speed its demise.Just three days later the Military Intelligence of the Ukrainian army, headed by General Budanov, started to ‘leak’ claims to the Ukrainian press about North Korean troops in Russia.
Since launching the first rumors of 1,500, then 3,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia the CIA trained head of the Ukrainian military special service General Budanov increased the number from hot air to 11,000 North Korean soldiers.
But even NATO denied to have any knowledge of such a force.
As I summarized at that time:
Shortly after RAND proposed a U.S. information operation campaign around the theme of North Korean soldiers in Russia the Ukrainian military intelligence service under CIA trainee Budanov started to spread rumors of North Korean soldiers soon to fight on the Russian side. The numbers claimed by Budanov have since steadily increased. South Korean intelligence, also associated with the CIA, and U.S. media have joined the campaign. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee is milking the campaign to make political points.
Evidence that was supposed to support the claims has been exposed as being fake. The whole story is thus based on nothing but ‘intelligence’ rumors which are following a RAND proposed script. Don’t fall for it.
The story continued to grow through repetition. Media quoted each other with each adding bits of bullshit from their usual ‘security sources’. What failed to turn up though was evidence.
After being repeatedly questioned about the lack of evidence for their claims, Ukrainian politicians presented their solution:
Today the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Rustem Umerov, has given a hint how Ukraine will handle this issue (machine translation):
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov confirmed the words of the head of the National Security and Defense Council’s Center for Combating Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko , that the first “small-scale fighting” had already taken place between the Ukrainian Armed Forces and North Korean soldiers, and the Koreans had suffered losses.
…
Umerov also said that the Russian Federation disguises Koreans as Buryats, so the dead and prisoners must be identified before Ukraine calls the number of enemy losses.
Buryats are a Mongolic people in Siberia who are part of the Russian Federation. Many of them have joined the well paid ranks of Russian forces. Umerov’s plan was thus obvious:
As soon as some Buryat soldier of Russia will turn up dead, the Ukrainian military will present him as a disguised North Korean soldier. Some black and white photos will be found of a similar looking person in North Korean uniform …
“There is your prove. Now send soldiers and weapons.” will Umerov say.
There have since been several attempts by Ukrainian special services to reinforce their media campaign. Russian passports from dead Russian soldiers were presented as ‘fake documents’ carried by ‘North Koreans’. They even captured a Buryat:
On Oct. 28 (local time), Jonas Ohman, head of the Lithuanian NGO Blue/Yellow, which provides aid to Ukraine and its military, informed local media outlet LRT, stating, “The first encounter between a Ukrainian unit we support and North Korean soldiers occurred on the 25th in Kursk. To my knowledge, all of the North Korean soldiers, except for one, were killed. The surviving soldier was found carrying identification as a Buryat.”
Other ‘evidence’ included hand written letters, allegedly by North Korean soldiers, written in South Korean type and style.
Even Wikipedia had to admit:
As of January 2025, there has been no independent confirmation of the Buryat Battalion’s existence [,allegedly consisting of soldiers from North Korea,] outside of Ukrainian sources.
The nonsense of this scheme has become too obvious.
Now the CIA, with the help of the New York Times, is shutting it down.
The ‘North Korean soldiers’ are leaving the battlefield the same way they came – ever unseen.
North Korean Troops No Longer Seen on Front Lines Fighting Ukraine (archived) – New York Times, Jan 31 2024
North Korea sent its best troops to aid Russia in its war against Ukraine. But after months of suffering severe losses, they have been taken off the front line.
North Korean soldiers who joined their Russian allies in battle against Ukrainian forces have been pulled off the front lines after suffering heavy casualties, according to Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
The North Korean troops, sent to bolster Russian forces trying to push back a Ukrainian offensive inside Russia’s borders, have not been seen at the front for about two weeks, the officials said after requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive military and intelligence matters.
Well – that sentences is formally correct. But it would be even more precise to say that ‘North Korean troops have not been seen at the front – since ever.’
The CIA/NYT can’t go there (yet). They still add to the stupid claims:
Many of the soldiers are among North Korea’s best-trained special operations troops, but the Russians appear to have used them as foot soldiers, sending them forth in waves across fields studded with land mines to be mowed down by heavy Ukrainian fire.
Well, where are the pictures and videos of North Korean troops ‘sent forth in waves’ and ‘mowed down by heavy Ukrainian fire’?
In a war where every ground move is surveilled by dozens of drones how come there is not even one video that shows evidence of such a scene?
For now the RAND/Ukraine (dis-)information campaign of ‘North Korean’ soldiers fighting Ukraine has been shut down. U.S. ‘officials’ however keep the door open to relaunch it at a convenient time:
The American officials said the decision to pull the North Korean troops off the front line may not be a permanent one. It is possible, they said, that the North Koreans could return after receiving additional training or after the Russians come up with new ways of deploying them to avoid such heavy casualties.
Maybe a month, a year, or ten from now we will be again told about these imagined ‘enemies’ from North Korea which unite with Russians to ‘fight us’.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.
