‘At least 100 N Koreans killed’ fighting for Russia: Seoul

SEOUL: At least 100 North Koreans deployed to support Russia´s war effort in Ukraine have been killed since entering combat in December, a South Korean lawmaker told reporters on Thursday.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce the Russian military, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory this year.

“In December, they (North Korean troops) engaged in actual combat, during which at least 100 fatalities occurred,” lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun said, speaking after a briefing by South Korea´s spy agency.

“The National Intelligence Service also reported that the number of injured is expected to reach nearly 1,000.”

Despite those losses, the agency also said it had detected signs North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was preparing to train a new special operations force to ship westward.

Lee noted that the North´s elite Storm Corps -- from which the initial deployment was drawn -- had “the capacity to send reinforcements”.

The NIS also predicted “that Russia might offer reciprocal benefits” for a new deployment, Lee said, including “modernising North Korea´s conventional weaponry”.

The lawmaker added that “several North Korean casualties” had already been attributed to Ukrainian missile and drone attacks as well as training accidents, with the highest ranking “at least at the level of a general”.

The NIS said the high number of casualties could be attributed to the “unfamiliar battlefield environment, where North Korean forces are being utilised as expendable frontline assault units, and their lack of capability to counter drone attacks”, said Lee.