More than half of the roughly 11,000 troops North Korea initially sent to Russia’s western Kursk region have been killed or injured while fighting Ukrainian troops, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
In a report published on Sunday, the ministry said that North Korea likely incurred over 6,000 casualties after it deployed soldiers to Kursk, which borders Ukraine, in the autumn of 2024.
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British intelligence cited “highly attritional” assaults on North Korean foot soldiers as the cause of the high casualty rate.
Open-source intelligence has indicated that additional North Korean troops have been deployed after the losses.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported earlier this year that North Korea sent around 3,000 more soldiers to Russia this January and February, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Technology in return for troops
North Korea has become a significant military partner to Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, providing artillery shells, missiles, and troops in return for oil products and advanced military technology, including ballistic missile enhancements.
Ukraine initiated a bold cross-border operation into the Kursk region in August 2024, the first such foreign invasion of Russian territory since World War II, aiming to divert Moscow’s forces from the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Russia began a counteroffensive to reclaim the area in early March 2025, forcing Ukraine to withdraw from much of the territory it had originally captured.
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