North Korean soldiers deployed in the Russian region of Kursk are suffering heavy losses and do not benefit from any support from the Russian army with which they are fighting, Volodimir Zelensky said on Friday.
In his daily address, the Ukrainian president said the Russian military was sending North Korean soldiers into battle with minimal protection and that the North Koreans themselves were taking extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner.
“Their losses are significant, very significant. We see that neither the Russian army nor their North Korean supervisors have the slightest interest in guaranteeing the survival of these North Koreans,” Volodimir Zelensky said.
“Everything is done to make it impossible for us to capture them. There are cases where they are executed by their own forces. The Russians send them to attack with minimal protection,” he added.
Ukrainian and Western intelligence services estimate that around 12,000 North Korean troops have been deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces entered in August.
Volodimir Zelensky said Monday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or injured in the fighting.
He said Friday that Ukrainian forces managed to take some North Korean soldiers prisoner. “But they were seriously injured and it was not possible to save their lives,” he said.
The Ukrainian president also called on China to use its influence with North Korea to prevent the latter from getting involved in the conflict triggered by Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
(Edited by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar, French version Bertrand Boucey)
