More than 6,000 North Korean soldiers are believed to have been injured or killed while fighting in Russia’s Kursk region in support of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, according to estimates by British intelligence, underscoring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s role as a key ally of President Vladimir Putin in a war now in its fourth year.
The number amounts to more than half of the 11,000 North Korean troops initially deployed to the Kursk region, the UK Defence Ministry said in a post on the X social media platform. “Significant DPRK casualty rates have almost certainly been sustained primarily through large, highly attritional dismounted assaults,” the statement said. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Bloomberg was unable to independently verify the figures.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine provides official figures for the number of combat casualties.
North Korea acknowledged for the first time in April that it deployed troops to support Russia but didn’t confirm the number of soldiers dispatched or the level of casualties.
The estimate comes as Putin and Kim are set to mark this week the first anniversary of their mutual defence treaty that revived a deal dating back to the Cold War.
Kim has since become a crucial source of missiles, munitions and even foot soldiers for Russia’s war. — Bloomberg
