A photo exhibition outside of the North Korean embassy in Moscow, 30 October 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV
Hundreds of North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in Russia’s partially occupied Kursk region, The Guardian reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed senior US military official.
The official said that their latest estimate was “several hundred casualties”, which would include everything from light wounds up to being killed in action.
The Guardian’s source did not provide an exact number of North Korean soldiers who had been killed, but added that soldiers of “all ranks” were among the killed and wounded.
Russia has actively sought North Korean assistance in its war in Ukraine in recent months. The New York Times reported in early November that Moscow had sent about 50,000 Russian and North Korean soldiers to the Kursk region in preparation for a counterattack to reclaim areas seized by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) since they launched a surprise incursion into Russia in August.
South Korean intelligence said in October that North Korea had sent 12,000 troops to the war in Ukraine, including special forces units, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky corroborating the figure.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said earlier this month that North Korea’s leadership had agreed to send military personnel to the Kursk region in exchange for obsolete Russian MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter jets.
Russian pro-war military correspondents reported on 13 December that North Korean soldiers had gone into battle with the AFU in the Kursk region for the first time.
