NORTH Koreans are being made to file through booby-trapped fields and blown up one-by-one like human mine detectors, a Ukrainian Colonel has revealed.

In the first account of close-up combat with North Koreans, Lieutenant Colonel “Leopard” said the troops are being used for Russia’s “meat grinder” strategy where the commanders are “unfazed by loss of life”.

He told The Times: “Where Ukrainians use a mine-clearing vehicle, [the Russians] just use people.”

“They just walk in single file, three to four metres from each other, if one is blown up, then the medics go behind to pick up the dead, the crowd continues one after another.

“That’s how they pass through minefields,” he said.

There is a developing pattern of North Koreans being been sent on these effective suicide missions by the Russians.

Footage emerged recently of Kim Jong-un’s fighters being sent to jog through snowy no-man’s-land and fatally soak up Ukrainian ammo.

On a battlefield in Kursk, some two dozen men thought to be North Korean fighters huddle together before jogging out towards enemy lines.

Ukrainian veteran Vitaliy, 35, told The Times it was “like a dream for our mortars and machine gunners”.

A dairy found on a dead North Korean soldier also illuminated the twisted sacrificial mentality that has been drilled into them by officials.

One entry read: “Defending the homeland is a sacred duty of every citizen and the highest mission.”

“I will join the front lines of this operation and sacrifice my life.”

North Korean troops tried to thwart Ukraine’s latest push into the Kursk region by storming the Ukrainian village of Makhnovka on Tuesday, in order to cut them off.

They attempted to out-flank the offensive’s forces and cut off some of Ukraine’s “best-equipped” brigades.

A previous Russian attempt to do the same thing had failed, with Zelenksy claiming on Saturday that an entire battalion of North Koreans and Russian paratroopers had been wiped out there.

This time, a few hundred North Koreans managed to push into the village, and Leopard’s battalion was called up to reclaim it.

“Our storm troops were sent in to conduct a counterattack,” he said.

They watched the North Koreans through drone cameras, and saw them driving pensioners out into the snow in order to take shelter themselves.

“Metre by metre, our infantry moved under the cover of the tanks and cleared the streets.

“They manoeuvred so that they wouldn’t be hit by the artillery.”

The colonel said the North Koreans were mixed in amongst Russian troops in an attempt to condeal their identity.

But the Ukrainians can tell them apart because the Koreans “don’t use drones yet, only the Russians”, Leopard said.

“But I suspect they are starting to learn this, and the longer the war drags on, the more likely they are to innovate.”

Leopard’s men successfully reclaimed the village with a firestorm of drones, vehicles and infantry.

He revealed that, unlike the Russians, the North Koreans refused to be taken alive.

They would either fight to the death or run and hide in the trees – although they seemed not to grasp that the Ukrainians could spot them easily with drones.

This account of intimate conflict with Kim Jong-un’s dispatched fighters is unprecedented as previous engagement has been mainly through remote drones.

An initial force of around 12,000 North Korean troops were shipped over to Russia, as first reported at the beginning of November.

After a training period, evidence began to emerge in December that they had begun actively fighting on the front line.

They have been most active in the Kursk region of Russia, where Zelenksy launched a second surprise offensive.

South Korean intelligence reported last month that Kim is plotting to send even more North Koreans over to the front line.