This Thursday, January 16, American experts from the Institute for the Study of War unveiled an alarming note on the fate that could suffer the 12,000 North Korean soldiers deployed by Russia to fight the Ukrainians.
According to these experts, on average, 92 men per day are killed in combat in this conflict. By mid-April 2025, all 12,000 North Korean soldiers therefore risk being killed or injured. The Institute for the Study of War adds: “The entire North Korean contingent of approximately 12,000 currently in Kursk Oblast could be killed or wounded in combat by mid-April 2025, if North Korean forces continue to suffer at their rate current high losses in the future. »
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The American think tank establishes its figures through an analysis of different conflicts around the world. In particular, they used data provided by the Ukrainian government. Volodymyr Zelensky indicated in December 2024 that already nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or injured in this conflict.
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Lack of knowledge of the field
Two reasons can explain this high number: ignorance of the terrain or the use of these soldiers as cannon fodder by the Russians. The figure put forward by North Korea’s historic rivals, South Korea, is lower and stands at 1,000 North Korean soldiers killed or wounded during these fighting, which has lasted for almost three years.
At the end of 2024, the North Korean leader sent a letter to Vladimir Putin, his “dearest friend and comrade”, in which he wrote that “the Russian army will defeat neo-Nazism”, while praising the good relations between the two nations – which have strengthened considerably since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
