North Koreans ‘blow themselves up with grenades rather than risk capture’, say Ukraine soldiers
North Korean troops appear to have temporarily pulled back from the frontline in Russia after suffering heavy losses, a Ukrainian special forces commander has told Sky News.
The commander, who goes by the codename “Puls”, said Kim Jong Un‘s men were likely either learning lessons from mistakes made during their first, bloody clashes with Ukrainian soldiers, tending to their wounded or waiting for reinforcements.
“I think they’ll be back soon,” he said, speaking at a secret base in northeastern Ukraine.
A Ukrainian soldier takes forensic samples from the body of a North Korean on the battlefield
Interviews with several Ukrainian troops reveal remarkable details about how the North Koreans have been fighting since they arrived on the battlefield in the Russian region of Kursk last month. This includes:
• An apparent initial lack of awareness about the threats from drones and artillery, with North Korean soldiers attacking on foot “like something out of World War Two” in groups of 20, 40 or even 60 men, making themselves easy targets
• “Brainwashing” which means they keep pushing forward despite being under Ukrainian fire and with comrades being killed and wounded around them
• A desire to remove evidence of their presence from the warzone, with North Koreans in white helmets spotted trying to recover the wounded and the dead
• A refusal to be taken alive, with claims that North Koreans have been seen blowing themselves up with grenades rather than risk capture. Puls even claimed a North Korean has been heard shouting “For General Kim Jong Un” before killing himself
• Poor coordination between North Korean and Russian forces because of the language barrier. One soldier claimed radio intercepts revealed North Koreans accidentally targeted Russian positions. He also said they would storm Ukrainian positions, suffering losses, but Russian troops would then fail to exploit the gains
• Better kit than many Russians, including rifles and uniform, but a lack of heavy armour, with North Koreans only moving on foot and using golf buggies to transport ammunition.
“They were all clean-shaven and perfectly groomed, like models,” said Puls.
“Every single one – no beards, unkempt hair, or bald heads… It was also hard to determine their age. They all looked between 25 and 35, maybe up to 40.”
Ukrainian special forces during the operation
North Korean troop deployment not officially confirmed
Ukraine and its Western allies say Pyongyang has sent 11,000 troops to join Russia’s war, focusing on bolstering infantry lines in the Kursk region where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory in a daring invasion last August.
Neither Kim Jong-Un nor Vladimir Putin have officially confirmed the deployment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed last week that some 4,000 North Korean soldiers have already been killed or injured.
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A Ukrainian commander, who goes by the codename ‘Puls’
Puls commands the 1st Combat Divers Battalion of Special Operations Forces.
His elite commandos were tasked with capturing DNA samples and documents from a unit of about 25 North Korean soldiers who were killed in a drone and artillery barrage about a fortnight ago inside Kursk.
Body camera footage from the mission has been shared with Sky News. Edited clips have also been posted on social media.
Samples of saliva and hair are taken from dead North Koreans
Forensic samples taken
Ukrainian soldiers can be seen carefully sticking cottonwool buds into the mouths of dead North Korean troops to take samples of saliva and place them in an evidence bag.
They then remove the troops’ helmets, cutting clumps of hair and bagging them as well.
In addition, body armour is cut away so the Ukrainians can more easily access the documents and other items on each soldier, including military identity cards, dog tags, handwritten notes and photographs.
There was also evidence of loved ones back home
‘North Koreans only had ammo and chocolate’
One of Puls’s men, who took part in the operation and goes by the codename “Trainer”, said he was surprised that the North Koreans only had ammunition and chocolate as supplies to sustain them in the fight.
“Not a single soldier had a water bottle,” he said.
“They rely on the idea that they will storm through, take positions, and then eat and survive off our supplies.”
Asked what personal belongings he found, Trainer said: “There were letters. Of course, there were notebooks, notes. There were hand-drawn maps… There were photos of children, mothers, letters they tried to send home.”
Military identity cards were Russian, suggesting a bid to hide the true ethnicity of the troops
The military identity cards were Russian – a seemingly clumsy attempt to hide the true ethnicity of the soldiers.
Trainer said some of the notes appeared to be of soldiers’ experiences in battle. He said it seemed as though they were trying to learn from their exposure to modern warfare.
“It’s the experience they are accumulating for their country, for conflicts they might face in the future,” he said.
North Koreans ‘more disciplined’
Puls described how the North Koreans fought differently from the Russians.
“They are far more disciplined, with exceptional morale and determination – completely brainwashed, really,” he said.
Puls said about a fortnight ago he noticed the North Koreans pulling back.
“The Russians are standing, working everywhere along the frontline, but no Koreans,” he said.
“Either they’re analysing their mistakes, or tending to their wounds, or maybe they’re waiting for reinforcements. There’s talk that Kim Jong-Un is sending more North Koreans here. That’s the situation.”
He said intercepted Russian communications appeared to indicate they would be returning.
“They’re still present, training or waiting for reinforcements. Something is happening, they’ll be back soon.”
At least 50 people, including 33 children, have been killed in southern Sudan after a drone attack by paramilitary forces hit a nursery in South Kordofan state.
Sudan Doctors’ Network says paramedics on the scene in the town of Kalogi were also targeted by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a “second unexpected attack”.
Rights group Emergency Lawyers reported a “third civilian site” near the previous two attacks was also targeted.
The death toll is expected to be higher, but communication blackouts have made it difficult to confirm the full number of casualties.
Emergency Lawyers says the strikes are a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, especially children, and vital civilian infrastructure.”
UNICEF has urged both parties to stop the attacks immediately and allow safe access for humanitarian aid.
“Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights,” said UNICEF representative for Sudan Sheldon Yett.
“Children should never pay the price of conflict.”
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The attack on the nursery is among the latest in the two-year conflict between the RSF and Sudan’s military, where the focus has recently shifted to the oil-rich Kordofan states.
A photo released by UNICEF shows displaced children and families from al-Fashir. (Mohammed Jammal/UNICEF via AP)
Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the last few weeks as fighting shifted from Darfur, following the RSF’s violent takeover of the city of Al Fashir, which was marked with civilians being executed, rapes, sexual assaults and other atrocities.
Thousands managed to escape the violence, but thousands more are trapped or feared killed.
Grab from RSF social media channels in Al Fashir, Sudan
Meanwhile, Sudanese military aerial strikes last weekend killed at least 48 people, mostly civilians, in South Kordofan.
The RSF has also accused the military of carrying out a drone strike on the border with Chad, posting a video showing billowing black smoke.
The Associated Press has been unable to verify the video or whether there were any casualties, while Sudan’s military also hasn’t commented.
The RSF and the Sudanese military have been fighting for power over the country since 2023, which has seen more than 40,000 people killed, according to the World Health Organisation, although the real death toll is expected to be higher. 12 million people have been displaced.
The 3D picture we’re shown of Maryam’s skull shows a gaping hole.
It’s astonishing the young girl from Gaza even survived an Israeli bombing near her home.
But she’s sitting up in her hospital bed in the Jordanian capital Amman, as we look on and she’s smiling and joking during a call with her father who remains in the Palestinian territory.
“I’m okay,” she says cheerily, “how are you?”
She’s heard overnight there’s been severe flooding in Gaza and the tents and makeshift shelters which tens of thousands are living in, are now soaked and under water.
But her father is focussed on how his 12-year-old daughter is feeling ahead of yet another life-saving brain operation.
Maryam is a rarity.
She is one of a few hundred patients who’ve been allowed by the Israeli authorities to leave the Gaza Strip to receive critical medical help since the October 2025 agreement signed between Israel and Hamas, which was aimed at ending hostilities.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says they’ve identified nearly 16,000 medical cases needing urgent critical care outside Gaza.
WHO data documented a total of 217 patients who left Gaza for medical care in other countries between the dates of 13 October and 26 November 2025.
Since then, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has said a further 72 patients and caregivers from Gaza have departed the Israeli-occupied area for Jordan.
But behind them, they left a long queue of ill and wounded people in desperate need of the sort of specialised medical help Maryam Ibrahim is receiving in Jordan.
Alex Crawford and Dr Samer Elbabaa
Having survived the bombing and having survived the craniectomy (removing her fractured skull), Maryam’s next challenge was surviving the wait to receive permission to leave Gaza for the surgery which offered her a chance of long-term survival.
She waited almost half a year for this operation: an operation considered vital.
Without it, Maryam’s brain was unprotected. Any stumble or accident risked irreversibly injuring her brain and negatively impacting her neurological functions – a risk which was considerably heightened given where she’s living.
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) which has funded her medical care in Jordan says they’ve “witnessed at first hand the catastrophic toll of this conflict on children’s health and well-being.
“Thousands have been orphaned, maimed or left with lifelong trauma. Entire hospitals and health centres have been destroyed leaving an entire population of children without access to even the most basic medical care.”
While humanitarian organisations continue to encounter challenges in organising evacuations from Gaza, two British surgeons were amongst a group of medics refused permission by the Israeli authorities to enter the territory.
Dr Victoria Rose, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon with the IDEALS charity, told Sky News: “WHO calculated that in 2025, only 47% of emergency medical teams were granted entry to Gaza.
“This is at a time when hundreds of local doctors have been detained by the IDF with many still unaccounted for. Gaza does not have the manpower to cope with the numbers of injured.”
Maryam
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Maryam’s case received widespread publicity after the intervention of the popular American children’s educator and YouTuber Rachel Griffin Accurso known as “Ms Rachel”.
She highlighted her case by talking to the little girl via Instagram after Maryam posted about how she was being bullied for her unusual appearance because of her cranial injury.
Maryam’s family realise she’s been unusually fortunate to receive this specialised care, but they know too that as soon as Maryam is well enough, the little girl will be returned to Gaza and an unpredictable future.
The Israeli authorities continue to insist via X that they are helping to organise humanitarian aid into Gaza and are committed to “facilitating a humanitarian-medical response” – which includes establishing field hospitals.
They have repeatedly suggested that it is the lack of coordination on the part of various countries and organisations which is the issue – but this runs counter to what multiple humanitarian groups and individuals have experienced.
Germany’s parliament has voted to reintroduce voluntary military service, but getting Gen Z recruits could prove tricky.
Across the country, students gathered to demonstrate against what they fear will be a return to conscription.
In Berlin, they held signs saying, “You can’t have our lives if we don’t eat your lies” and “peace is power”.
While most demonstrators were in their late teens or twenties, some parents also turned out with their younger children.
One mother held a placard declaring: “You can’t have my son”.
The new plan means from January, all 18-year-olds will be sent a questionnaire about their fitness and willingness to serve.
Men must fill it in, while for women it will be voluntary.
In the future, if the numbers of volunteers are too low, then parliament could trigger conscription at times of war or in emergencies.
It’s an idea which horrifies many in the crowd.
“None of us want to die for a country that doesn’t really care about us,” Levi tells me.
He says the government has ignored their calls for climate protections and better social conditions, so he feels no allegiance to them.
Levi
I ask: “If Germany was attacked, who do you think should defend it if Gen Z don’t want to?”
“Why don’t the people that started the war do it? I don’t see why the older people shouldn’t go to war. I mean, a lot of them already were in the army,” he replies.
17-year-old Sara agrees, declaring: “I would not be willing to die for any country.”
“I don’t think it’s right to send children or anyone against their will into the military, because war is just wrong,” she says.
“I’m never going to join the military and if Germany is attacked, I’ll just go somewhere else where there’s no war.”
Sara
While the government says the system will be voluntary for as long as possible, from 2027 all 18-year-old men will have to have a medical examination so the government can see who is fit to serve.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius says the mandatory medical is needed so that in the event of an attack, Germany would not waste time confirming “who is operationally capable as a homeland protector and who is not”.
The move is a massive cultural shift for Germany, which suspended mandatory military conscription on 1 July 2011.
“From my friends no one wants to volunteer because we don’t want to fight for a problem that’s not really ours. We didn’t start the problems, they [the government] did,” says Silas.
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Sky’s Europe Correspondent Siobhan Robbins investigates.
The change is a direct reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Despite Moscow’s denials, NATO’s chief has warned Russia could be able to attack a member country in the next four to five years.
I ask 19-year-old Lola if she’s thinks Russia is a threat?
“It could be, maybe. However, I think there are more important issues, especially like social ones, than war,” she says.
Lola
Her friend, 28-year-old Balthasar, goes further, saying: “A country being able to attack isn’t the same as a country planning to attack.
“The track record of Russia has been to attempt at least diplomatic resolution, cooperation, and I think those are the right approaches to take in international politics, opposed to sabre-rattling, which the German government has resorted to.”
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has said he wants to build the strongest army in Europe.
Germany currently has around 184,000 soldiers and wants to boost that by over 80,000 in the next decade.
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Volunteers are being offered incentives like a monthly wage of more than €2,000 (£1,750).
Despite this, a survey earlier this year found 81% of Gen Z wouldn’t fight for Germany.
In contrast, many of the older generation supported conscription.
At the Berlin protest, 17-year-old Valentin was the only person we met who reluctantly agreed to fight.
Valentin
“When we are attacked, then yes [I would fight], but when we are attacking other countries, then no,” he says.
Germany isn’t the only country looking for reinforcements, last month France announced a new military service for over-18s.
Currently, 10 EU countries already have compulsory military service.
While others like Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany are opting for voluntary schemes.
The German plan still must be signed off by parliament’s upper house later this month before it’s expected to start in January.
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