Day 1032

On 21 December, there are a lot of interesting updates from the Kursk direction. The Russian and North Korean assaults at Kruglenkoe proved to be nothing short of a disaster, with both attacking sides suffering tremendous losses.

Russian commanders redirected their North Korean human waves to another salient part. However, their tactics hadn’t changed, and with the Ukrainians now being well prepared for the North Korean mass charge, the result seemed even worse than before.

Previously, the combined effort of the Russian and North Korean forces suffered heavy losses during their offensive west of Malaya Loknya. Despite committing substantial resources to the assault, they failed to reach the town, incurring hundreds of casualties in exchange for a mere foothold in the forest. This forced them to reassess their plan of attack.

As their assault on the western part of the Kursk salient failed to achieve significant results, Russian forces shifted their focus eastward, targeting the area around Cherkasskoe Porechnoe. Their objective remains the same: to sever a substantial portion of the Ukrainian-held Kursk salient. Capturing Cherkasskoe Porechnoe would pave the way for an advance further south toward Kazachya Loknya, cutting off a key supply route to Malaya Loknya.

As conventional attempts to take the town from the north and east have proven impossible, Russians aim to achieve more success along the eastern flank by deploying North Korean soldiers to assault the forest north of Cherkasskoe Porechnoe and Russkoe Porechnoe head-on. Securing this forest would allow the North Korean troops to amass their forces under relative cover, enabling them to form large assault groups to overwhelm Ukrainian defenders in the two settlements through sheer numbers. Controlling both villages would then allow them to launch further attacks southward through the forest, putting significant pressure on the core of the Ukrainian salient.

If we take a look at the topographic map, we can see that most of the high ground in the area consists of open fields. This means that the forests are the only tactical positions where firing posts can be effectively established, thanks to the tree cover they provide. Moreover, their location north of Russkoe Porechnoe and Cherkasskoe Porechnoe provides both fire control and entry into both villages, which lie in the lowlands near the Sudza River valley.

North Koreans’ first and soon to be final obstacle will prove to be crossing the open fields in front of this forest. Russian commanders had seen the devastation caused by Ukrainian drones and artillery to the unsupported pure infantry assaults over the past days but still refused to support their North Korean allies with either armored or artillery support, preferring to use them purely as a mass assault human wave only meant to weaken Ukrainian positions and take the brunt of the Ukrainian defense.

Combat footage shows North Korean fighters charging across the fields in large groups of pure infantry. Having received just a few weeks of training, most lacked an understanding of modern warfare tactics, leading them to cross open fields in large groups instead of using small infantry group tactics that Russians have increasingly used as of late. This made them easy targets for Ukrainian artillery as they rushed toward the tree lines.

Ukrainian drone operators quickly took to the skies, targeting splintered-off groups of North Korean soldiers with deadly precision. Several North Koreans attempted to shoot down the drones with small arms fire as they flew in, but the drones proved too agile as they found their targets nonetheless. The North Korean attack failed, with the entire assault group wiped out and picked off in a brutal and futile charge across the open fields.

Overall, the poorly executed North Korean attacks, compounded by their lack of knowledge about modern warfare, set the stage for disaster, allowing the Ukrainians to exploit their shortcomings and inflict heavy losses.

The North Koreans’ failure to secure the forests will enable Ukrainians to heavily reinforce their defenses in the area and prepare for another future assault, making the outlook of any renewed assaults even more catastrophic. This setback will likely compel Russian generals to search for yet another attack vector in a desperate attempt to recover from their repeated failures.

In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Read also:

• Frontline report: Ukrainian cluster shells shatter North Koreans in Kursk massacre, survivors refuse to fight
• Frontline report: Ukrainians send 100+ North Korean soldiers to Kursk hospitals in failed offensive