Haunting moment North Korean soldier shoots his own comrade dead as he desperately tries to ward off kamikaze drone

THIS is the haunting moment a North Korean soldier shoots his own comrade dead as he desperately tries to fight a kamikaze drone.

The bungle happened inside Russia as Kim Jong-un's men have been sent to fight the Ukrainians as cannon fodder.

Footage shows the drone flying around the two men who are standing in a field of dead sunflowers covered in snow.

The craft comes down low over the top of one of the men and flies directly at the second man.

The North Korean then opens fire at the drone coming at him.

But, he misses instead shooting his pal dead.

As the drone flies off into the sky again the soldier's body can be seen lying in the snow with his rifle next to him.

The footage was captured in Kursk, Russia, where Ukraine invaded in August in a surprise revenge move.

Russia has spent months trying to get the land back, but has so far been unable to.

Vladimir Putin has now called in pal Kim Jong-un to provide thousands of soldiers to help.

Footage is now emerging of North Koreans fighting - as Russia throws them into the meat grinder.

Another clip showed the soldiers forced to jog through a snowy no-mans-land while Ukrainian troops pick them out one by one.

Dressed in Russian army fatigues, they make no effort to find cover and instead cross the icy field in clear view of Ukrainian drones.

Some crouch on the ground while others jog almost carelessly up and down the frontline in the drone video.

Other drone videos released by Ukraine's military claimed to show North Korean fighters on the front line and the bodies of slain Russian and Korean soldiers stacked together.

One clip reportedly shows the bodies of dozens of dead Korean soldiers laid out by Putin's forces after another major clash in the Kursk region.

Meanwhile Ukrainian premier Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Russians are burning the faces off of dead North Korean soldiers so they remain unidentifiable.

South Korean spies revealed at least 100 of Kim’s men were mowed down this week, and another 1000 were injured - a significant chunk of the 11,000 initially dispatched.

It is not clear how many more fighters Kim intends to send, but South Korean intelligence (NIS) reported he will personally inspect their training after the first troop wave was caught lacking.

The NIS attributes the high casualty rate to the fact that the North Koreans are fighting in “unfamiliar battlefields”.

They have very little experience of drone warfare, a key tactic of Ukraine, and so are being “consumed” like "canon fodder".

The spy agency added that the Russian military had complained their North Korean comrades were a “burden” due to their “ignorance” of drones.

Video released earlier this week by the Ukrainian military shows drones decked out with Christmas toys including, reindeer and a Santa Clause, hunting down North Korean troops and picking them off with apparent ease.

A senior US military official said the DPRK troop’s injuries "would include everything from […] light wounds up to being KIA [killed in action]," and affect troops from lower-levels to "very near the top".

He added: "These are not battle-hardened troops."