North Korean troops are dying in increasing numbers in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

While Russia’s president claims his troops are advancing rapidly, North Koreans wearing Russian uniforms are believed to be suffering the most in fighting to dislodge Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reports “at least” 100 North Koreans killed and probably another 1,000 wounded, mostly the victims of Ukrainian drones.

Reporting on an intelligence briefing for South Korean national assembly members, Seoul’s Yonhap News said the North Koreans were “being ‘consumed’ as front-line storm troopers in ‘unfamiliar battlefields’ due to their lack of experience with drones.” An “elite” North Korean unit may soon join them as President Putin prosecutes a war that he’s confident the Russians are slowly winning.

The North Koreans, getting their first taste of actual combat after years of confrontation with South Korea, are spearheading Russia’s campaign to drive the Ukrainians from Kursk. The 11,000 North Koreans dispatched to Russia by the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, have yet to advance onto Ukrainian soil, but some are likely to enter Ukraine in coming days as Mr. Putin revs up the campaign.

“The situation is changing significantly,” Mr. Putin said in an interview with Russia’s Tass news agency.  “There is progress along the entire front line every day. … Our fighters are regaining the territory by square kilometers.”

Mr. Putin, however, overlooked one crucial detail — the North Korean role in a war that Mr. Kim is reportedly monitoring closely while considering sending still more troops to support his Russian ally. Nor is Mr. Kim, who has already exported millions of artillery shells and other weapons for the Russians, talking about what his troops are doing in Russian uniforms. 

The Russian leader, in the Tass interview, characterized what is happening as “a classic of the development of combat operations.” First, he said, “the adversary climbs in, inflicts serious defeats in equipment, ammunition, manpower, and then starts moving forward. This is exactly what is happening here.”

“Our fighters are reclaiming territory by the square kilometer every day,” Tass quoted Mr. Putin as saying. “Everyone is fighting, literally heroically. They are fighting right now. Let us wish them all … good luck, victory and to return home.”

The North Koreans, though, are the unsung heroes as they pose as Russian soldiers gaining the combat experience they will need if Mr. Kim ever makes good on his threats against South Korea and ignites a second Korean War.

As of now, while they’re fighting for the Russians, North Korea officially is justifying its “right” to do whatever it wishes without mentioning Ukraine.

“We will not impose any restrictions on defending and exercising the legitimate right granted to our sovereign state,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

The spokesman accused Washington and its allies of “distorting and slandering the essence of the normal cooperative relations between the DPRK and the Russian Federation.” They were “hell-bent,” the statement in the official KCNA translation said, “on creating the international atmosphere of sanctions and pressure on the DPRK” — the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In their zeal to cover up the North Korean role, Russian soldiers have actually burned the faces of dead North Koreans to hide their ethnic and national origins, Ukrainians are saying.

“Russians try to conceal the faces of North Korean soldiers even after death,” was the subtitle on a video that Ukraine’s president posted showing what was said to be the burning of the corpse of a North Korean soldier, according to Yonhap.

Washington has not officially estimated the number of North Korean casualties, but the national security communications adviser,  John Kirby, confirmed the losses have been “significant” as the North Koreans advance to the front from rear areas.