Western officials told the BBC that North Korean forces have already suffered nearly 40% casualties in just three months of fighting in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 4,000 of the estimated 11,000 troops from North Korea, known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), were killed or wounded in the fighting.
This term includes dead, wounded, missing, or prisoners of war. Officials said about 1,000 of the 4,000 people were believed to have been killed by mid-January.
If these losses are confirmed, they will be unsustainable for North Korea.
It is not clear where the injured are being treated, or even when and to what extent they will be replenished.
But the figures show President Vladimir Putin’s ally Kim Jong Un is seeking to help remove Ukrainian troops from Russia ahead of possible ceasefire talks later this year, and the unusually high price This shows that there are significant costs involved.
Last August, Ukraine surprised Russia’s border guards by torpedoing Russia’s Kursk oblast.
The Kiev government made it clear at the time that it had no intention of retaining the captured territory, but only to use it as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations.
Ukraine’s initial gains in Kursk have since been steadily pushed back, in part due to the arrival of North Koreans in Russia in October.
However, Ukraine still holds hundreds of square kilometers of Russian territory, inflicting heavy losses on its enemies.
North Korean troops reportedly come from “elite” units called shock troops, which are sent into battle with relatively little training or protection.
“These are very poorly trained troops, led by Russian officers we don’t understand,” said Colonel Hamish de Brereton-Gordon, a former British Army tank commander.
“Frankly, they don’t stand a chance. They’ll be thrown into a meat grinder and have little chance of survival. They’re cannon fodder, and Russian officers care about them more than their own men. not present.”
A report attributed to South Korean intelligence says the North Koreans are unprepared for the realities of modern warfare and are particularly vulnerable to targeting by Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drones, a familiar weapon in the battlespace. It has been going on for years further south in Ukraine’s Donbas region, which appears to be vulnerable.
Nevertheless, General Oleksandr Shirushkyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, warned earlier this week that North Korean soldiers were posing serious problems for front-line Ukrainian fighters.
“They are in large numbers. Another 11,000 to 12,000 motivated and well-prepared soldiers are conducting offensive operations. They are acting on Soviet tactics. In platoons and companies. They are relying on numbers,” the general told Ukraine’s TSN Tizhden. news program.
