In the situation that Ukraine is, which is a desperate lack of money, ammunition ("thanks" to the US), weapons and soldiers, anything that purely exists to lift troop morale is already worth the effort, and if it even saves only one brave defender, it is more than worth it.
Except in reality they largely don't. Exceptions are the prison squads and alike, but the majority of the russian army consists of volunteers whose numbers are limited and Putin had to openly declare repeatedly there will be no mass mobilisation and those who are mobilized not put to combat in Ukraine. So despite some soviet military doctrin remaining, also the russian side had to learn soldiers are not expendable. (remember they had to bring in Korean soldiers?)
Putin also declared he didn't want a war with Ukraine mere days before he started one [1]. You cannot believe a word that comes out of the mouth of any Russian official.
And yet they're still sending in troops with barely any ammunition worth the name. The Russian M.O. against the Ukrainian fortifications still is meatwaves.
> remember they had to bring in Korean soldiers?
And from what one can hear from the usual milblogger/OSINT/analyst crowd, the NK troops face brutal casualty rates as well [1].
For NK it's still a good deal, enough will survive the ordeal and return that they can teach their own army a bit about modern warfare.
[1] https://kyivindependent.com/north-korean-troops-took-over-7-...
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/08/20/russia-and-ukraine-a...