North Korean troops sent to fight alongside Russia in its war against Ukraine have not been seen in battle for several weeks, raising speculation that they have been withdrawn after experiencing heavy losses, South Korea’s spy agency said.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service this week confirmed media reports that North Korean troops had been pulled from the front lines in about the middle of last month.
North Korea began sending an estimated 11,000 troops to the Russian Kursk region late last year, soon after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on a mutual defense pact designed to strengthen their alliance against what they called a US-led “Western hegemony.”
Photo: AP
Their involvement has come at a heavy price. Intelligence officials in South Korea said about 300 North Koreans had been killed and about 2,700 wounded.
Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted a clip on social media showing two captured North Korean soldiers, one of whom said his commanders had told him he was being sent on a “training exercise.”
North Korean soldiers, who had not seen combat before being deployed, were said to have been unprepared for the harsh realities of warfare in unfamiliar terrain and particularly vulnerable to Ukrainian drones.
Intelligence officials in South Korea said notes had been found on dead North Korean soldiers indicating that the regime expected them to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner.
The arrival of North Korean troops triggered fears that the war could take a dangerous turn for Ukraine, amid claims by military officials in South Korea that the regime in Pyongyang was preparing to send even more troops.
In return for sending personnel, weapons and ammunition, North Korea is hoping to gain access to sophisticated Russian satellite technology and earn foreign currency to fund its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service said the large number of casualties was a factor in the apparent decision to withdraw North Korean soldiers from Kursk, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive in August last year.
As many as half of the North Korean troops sent to Ukraine have been killed or injured in Russia’s “war of attrition,” said Seth Jones, director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“The casualty rates were significant,” Jones said during a podcast appearance. “By most accounts, we were able to take a look at somewhere between a third and probably on the real high end, maybe 50 percent casualties among the North Korean forces.
“Again, [it’s] hard to know exactly what reality is … with as many as 1,000 killed. Those are pretty staggering casualties for a force of 11,000 [to] 12,000,” he said.
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