South Korea’s spy agency on Wednesday said that North Korea appears to have sent additional troops to Russia, after its soldiers deployed on the front lines experienced heavy casualties.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) in a statement said it was trying to determine exactly how many more troops North Korea has deployed to Russia.
The NIS also assessed that North Korean troops were redeployed at fronts in Russia’s Kursk region in the first week of this month, following a reported temporary withdrawal from the area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in an address on Feb. 7, confirmed a new Ukrainian offensive in Kursk and said North Korean troops were fighting alongside Russian forces there.
Photo: AP
North Korea has been supplying a vast amount of conventional weapons to Russia, and in the fall of last year sent about 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia as well, US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence officials have said.
North Korean soldiers are highly disciplined and well-trained, but observers said that they have become easy targets for drone and artillery attacks on Russian-Ukraine battlefields due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain.
The NIS last month said that about 300 North Korean soldiers had died and another 2,700 had been injured. Zelenskiy put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 4,000, although US estimates were lower at about 1,200.
Earlier on Wednesday, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing unidentified sources, reported that an additional 1,000 to 3,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to Kursk between last month and this month.
South Korea, the US and their partners worry that Russia could reward North Korea by transferring high-tech weapons technologies that can sharply enhance its nuclear weapons program.
During talks in Saudi Arabia last week, Russia and the US agreed to start working toward ending the war and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. Ukrainian officials were not at the talks.
Observers have said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could send more troops to Russia to win further Russian assistance before the war ends.
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