North Koreans ‘disappear’ amid heavy Russian casualties in Ukraine war
Al Jazeera
South Korea’s assessment comes as Ukraine’s stout defence takes a growing toll for every square kilometre Russia seizes.
North Korean soldiers fighting against Ukraine have disappeared from the battlefield, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported this week.
“Since mid-January, there have been no signs showing North Korean troops deployed to the Russian Kursk region engaging in battle,” the NIS said on Tuesday.
An estimated 11,000 North Koreans were deployed to Kursk last December, to help Russia fight a Ukrainian counterinvasion launched last August.
The NIS statement confirmed a recent report by The New York Times, which cited heavy casualties among North Koreans as the reason for their redeployment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that as many as 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been wounded or killed – roughly a third of the corps. The NIS put the figure at 3,000.
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