Zelensky: 3,000 North Korean troops killed or wounded in Kursk region

More than 3,000 North Korean soldiers sent to the front lines of Ukraine by Kim Jong Un have been killed or wounded, according to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce the Russian military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock border incursion in August. Zelensky wrote on X that ‘according to preliminary data, the number of North Korean soldiers killed and wounded in the Kursk region has already exceeded 3,000’. South Korea said earlier Monday that around 1,100 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded since entering combat in December.

The Ukrainian president said he had received a report from army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky on the situation in the Kursk region and warned of ‘risks of North Korea sending additional troops and military equipment to the Russian army’. Zelensky said the world needs to understand that ‘growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang’ leads to a proportionate increase in ‘risk of destabilization around the Korean Peninsula and in neighboring regions or waters’. It comes after graphic footage showing the moment a Ukrainian special operations crew targeted a North Korean position in Kursk with kamikaze drones was released. Dramatic footage showed the drones circling troops as they scrambled to get away in an open field in Kurshchina, shared by the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Telegram today.

Twelve vehicles were also destroyed during skirmishes in the open field, including three buggies, the military claimed. The crew said it had killed 77 and wounded as many as 40 North Korean soldiers over a three day period of fighting in the region. More than 1,000 North Korean soldiers have already been killed or wounded in Russia ‘s war with Ukraine, South Korea ‘s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) assessed today. The new figure follows a report by Seoul’s spy agency to MPs last week, which said at least 100 North Korean soldiers had been killed since entering combat in December.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce Putin’s forces, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year. ‘Through various sources of information and intelligence, we assess that North Korean troops who have recently engaged in combat with Ukrainian forces have suffered around 1,100 casualties,’ the JCS said in a statement. ‘We are particularly interested in the possibility of additional deployments’ of North Korean soldiers to aid Russia’s war effort, the JCS added. Pyongyang is reportedly ‘preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers’, the JCS said.

South Korea’s military said that it has also detected signs of North Korea preparing to send more troops and weapons, including [kamikaze] drones, to Russia. It added that Kim Jong Un appeared to be currently supplying 240mm rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery to the front lines. ‘There are also some signs of [the North] moving to manufacture and supply [kamikaze] drones, first unveiled during [dictator] Kim Jong-un’s on-site inspection in November.’ Such drones have been widely used in the Ukraine war, and Kim ordered a mass production of the aerial weapons and an update of military theory and education, citing intensifying global competition, state media reported.

Russia has looked to bolster its forces with foreign conscripts in recent months, adding some 12,000 troops from North Korea and reportedly press-ganging Yemenis into fighting on the frontlines with the promise of high-paid employment away from the war. But Putin remains sensitive about admitting to his people the extent to which he is using Kim’s forces in exchange for cash, oil and sophisticated arms supplies. The ID documents of dead North Koreans show them with fake names and imply they were born in Russia’s Tuva region. One was falsely listed as a roofer from Tuva, a mountainous area of Siberia.

Russia alone has already lost some 200,000 soldiers to the conflict so far, the WSJ reported last month, while data from UAlosses suggests Ukraine has lost 60,435 since 2022, of a population of around 37 million. Journalists have now identified the names of 84,761 Russian soldiers who they say died during the invasion of Ukraine, according to an investigation by BBC Russia and Mediazona. The list was last updated on December 6. Some 18,963 men died in 2022, followed by 33,550 last year and 20,364 to date this year.

However, the report notes that ‘most significantly, 2024 appears set to become the war’s deadliest year’ as ‘casualty data emerges with considerable delay and our data for 2022-23 is more complete’. While more than one million Ukrainians are now in uniform, including National Guard and other units, Russia was able to boost the size of its army to 1.5 million active personnel in September , making it the second largest in the world, per Russia media. Ukraine continues to weaken the invading force with strategic drone attacks, delivering huge damage to infrastructure.

Russia suffered a major setback two weeks ago when drones carried out an overnight attack on an oil facility in the Oryol region, a crucial source of fuel supplies for Russian troops. The drones hit the Steel Horse production control station, which lies about 170 km (107 miles) from the border with Ukraine, a military statement said. Russian regional governor Andrei Klychko said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukrainian drones had struck a fuel infrastructure facility, causing a fire but no casualties. He said 11 drones had been shot down over the region. Footage showed the sky light up in vivid apocalyptic yellow and orange colors as air defenses sought to defend the strategic oil depot. Separate Ukrainian strikes recently have homed in on supply bases for the Druzhba pipeline which is key to oil supplies for Hungary and Slovakia, both of which have opposed military aid and NATO membership for Ukraine.

Ukraine has also had to repel drone strikes from Russia. Ukraine’s air force said today it had shot down 47 out of 72 Russia-launched drones across the country, while 25 more failed to reach targets. In a statement on Telegram, it said that the military repelled attacks in nine regions, including the Kyiv region, surrounding Ukraine’s capital. According to the air force, unidentified private entities and houses were damaged in the Kyiv region and the western region of Khmelnytskyi. One person was injured in the Khmelnytskyi region, and a power line was damaged in the Kyiv region, according to local authorities.

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