About 1,000 North Koreans killed fighting Ukraine in Kursk, officials say

Western officials have told the BBC that North Korean troops have already suffered about 40% casualties in the battle in the western Russian region of Kursk, in just three months.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that of the approximately 11,000 soldiers sent from North Korea, known as the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), 4,000 were wounded in the war.

The term includes those killed, wounded, missing or captured. Of the 4,000, the officials said that about 1,000 are believed to have been killed by mid-January.

These losses, if confirmed, are not sustainable by the North Koreans.

It is not clear where the injured are being punished, nor when and if they will be replaced.

But the figures show the high price President Vladimir Putin’s allies, such as Kim Jong Un, are willing to pay to help him expel Ukrainian troops from Russia ahead of ceasefire talks at the end of the year.

Ukraine launched a lightning strike in Russia’s Kursk region last August, surprising Russian border guards.

The Kyiv government made it clear at the time that it had no intention of holding the seized territory, only using it as a bargaining chip in future peace talks.

Ukraine’s early gains at Kursk have been reversed, perhaps due to the arrival of North Korea in Russia in October.

But Ukraine still maintains several hundreds of kilometers of Russian territory and is inflicting serious damage on its enemy.

The North Korean soldiers, who are said to be from an “elite” unit called the Storm Corps, appear to have been thrown into the battle with little to no training or protection.

“These are well-trained soldiers led by Russian officers who don’t understand,” says former British tank commander Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.

“Frankly they don’t have a chance. They’re being thrown into a meat grinder with little chance of survival. They’re cannon fodder, and the Russian authorities treat them even less than their men.”

Reports by South Korean intelligence say the North Koreans are unprepared for the reality of modern warfare, and appear to be vulnerable to being targeted by Ukrainian First-Person-View (FPV) drones, a weapon that has become popular in the war. some in southern Ukraine Donbas region for years now.

Despite this, Ukrainian army chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi warned earlier this week that North Korean forces were posing a serious threat to Ukrainian frontline fighters.

“They are numerous. More than 11,000-12,000 highly motivated and well-organized who are doing dirty work. They work according to Soviet methods. They form platoons, companies. They rely on their numbers,” the official told the Ukrainian news program TSN Tyzhden.