Almost six decades ago, while playing guard on my high school football team, we were running practice plays. I was hit so hard on the line that I spun around totally disoriented. The good news was I sacked the quarterback for a loss; the bad news was I was an offensive guard who had inadvertently just tackled my own quarterback! I don’t know who was more shocked by the play – my quarterback or me. But on the next play, the quarterback drove my miscue home to the rest of the team by yelling, “Where is Zumwalt?” giving rise to the suggestion opposing teams now had the advantage of 12, rather than the normal 11, defensive players on the field. Former team members never let me forget the incident at subsequent class reunions!
When such miscues occur on a football field, little of value is lost. It is a much different situation on a battlefield, with the cost of the loss turning on which side of the front lines the miscuer stands. In Russia’s war with Ukraine, North Korea was on the wrong side of the front lines when it learned this lesson the hard way.
In an effort to support another dictator, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has sent inexperienced combat troops to Russia to assist President Vladimir Putin in the 2022 war he initiated with Ukraine, seeking to relieve it of some of its territory.
But the North Koreans are not the only Russia-friendly foreign troops engaging the Ukrainians. Putin is assisted as well by Chechen mercenary fighters. Chechnya is a republic in Russia, located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. The majority of its people are Muslim. Between 1994-2000, Russia fought two wars with Chechnya, driving many Chechens to Ukraine. As a result, today, Chechen forces are split with some fighting alongside the Russians while others have joined Ukraine. The former are known as Kadyrovites – a term used to describe those loyal to Chechnya’s leader.
Ukraine has invaded an area known as Kurst Oblast located in western Russia. It is estimated at least 12,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia with 10,000 of them – less a few dozen who quickly defected – fighting the Ukrainians in Kurst Oblast. The North Koreans have suffered serious losses at the hands of the Ukrainians, many due to the latter’s use of drones. And, as far as those North Koreans who rushed into battle to demonstrate their combat savvy, they opened fire on and killed eight Chechens – only learning later those killed were Russian-friendly Kadyrovites. The mishap was the result of a language barrier that resulted in the North Koreans attacking a Kadyrovite convoy.
It has obviously been an embarrassment for Putin to see that a war he senselessly started over two years ago against a militarily inferior fighting force is still ongoing with some of the fighting now occurring on Russian soil. While he is assembling a combined force of 50,000 North Koreans and Russians to launch a counterattack against Ukraine to regain Kurst Oblast, we will undoubtedly see a large number of the former become cannon fodder for the effort.
Meanwhile, in an obvious attempt to find a military leader among his generals who is more capable than simply putting his troops through a meat-grinder (Russia allegedly lost 2,000 troops in November 2024 alone), Putin abruptly replaced his top commander at the Ukraine front just days ago. The new commander is Lt. Gen. Andrei Ivanayev who has unhesitantly been criticized by a news channel linked to the infamous Russian mercenary Wagner Group. That channel opined: “General Ivanayev has been appointed commander of ‘Vostok.’ They are reporting from the field that he is an incredibly stupid and permanently drunk scumbag, who has not been noted for anything other than failed meaty assaults at the front.”
While Ivanayev receives a damning endorsement from critics, nonetheless, in leading any assault against the Ukrainians, the general would be well advised for his own safety to heed the cry of my old high school quarterback by shouting, “Where are the North Koreans?”