A former North Korean special forces soldier said Kim Jong Un’s elite ‘Storm Corps’ in Russia likely isn’t his A-team

November 11, 2024 MeighTimbol News 0

BUSINESS INSIDER | Published November 12, 2024

North Korea’s troops in Russia are largely thought to be from Pyongyang’s elite Storm Corps.
But as more sightings of them emerge, doubts are rising about their true status as special forces.
One ex-member of the branch said he thinks North Korea did send special forces, but not its best.

As questions arise over the quality of Kim Jong Un’s troops in Russia, a former soldier who served in North Korea’s special forces said they’re likely the country’s elite troops.

Lee Woong-gil, who defected to South Korea in 2007, told the Seoul-based outlet The Korea Times that he believes the North Korean men sighted in Russia are, indeed, special forces.

“They do not appear to be the finest members, however,” he told the outlet.

Washington and Kyiv believe that about 11,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia to aid its war in Ukraine, including some 8,000 dispatched to the Kursk region.

The exact makeup of the deployment is unclear, but many of the troops are said to be Kim’s elite branch, also known as the “Storm Corps” or “Black Berets.” As early reports of the transfers emerged in mid-October, South Korea’s intelligence agency had said that it observed an initial wave of 1,500 special forces entering eastern Russia.

The spy agency later said that it believed North Korea planned to send four brigades worth of elite forces, numbering 12,000 troops in total, to Russia.