Ukraine’s spies say they intercepted phone calls showing chaos as Russia works to integrate North Korean troops into its military operations.
Some of the calls were intercepted from troops involved in defending Kursk, a region of Russia on Ukraine’s northern border where Ukrainian troops seized territory in August, according to Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Russian military assigned one translator and three Russian servicemembers to every 30 North Korean soldiers, the spy agency said it learned from the calls.
But Russian soldiers on the intercepted calls appeared doubtful that they would have enough commanders to lead the new units, or enough weapons and ammunition to arm them 979 days into Moscow’s invasion.