North Korean soldiers killed or wounded in fighting with Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region have reached “several hundred,” a senior U.S. military official said. “Several hundred casualties is our latest estimate that North Korea has suffered,” the official said. The victims include soldiers of “all ranks who have never fought before,” he added.
The senior official’s comments on Pyongyang’s heavy losses came as Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) announced they had killed 50 of Kim’s soldiers and wounded 47 others over the past three days, particularly in the villages of Plekhovo, Vorobzha and Martynovka.
According to Western estimates, at least 10,000 North Korean forces have been deployed in Kursk Oblast since early August to assist the Russian military in combat operations. After reporting initial but limited clashes in November, Ukraine said over the weekend Russia began using troops in ground assaults. Ukraine’s military chief, Oleksandr Sirsky, confirmed that Moscow had stepped up attacks on the Ukrainian-controlled portion of Kursk over the past three days.
Meanwhile, North Korean troops have set up additional observation posts to detect drones used by Ukrainian security and defense forces. The servicemen are reportedly being used in infantry roles so far, and their involvement so far is limited to Kursk, implying they have not been deployed on Ukrainian soil. However, while President Volodymyr Zelensky has commented on the deaths of Kim’s soldiers by saying that “there is no single reason why North Koreans died in this war,” the Kremlin has deflected questions by referring them to the Defense Ministry, which has not commented.
(Online Union)
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