North Korea suffers more than 3,000 casualties fighting for Russia, Zelensky says

South Korea said earlier on Monday that around 1,100 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded since entering combat this month

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A damaged monument to Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in Sudzha, Kursk region, Russia in August. File photo: AP Photo

Published: 3:07pm, 23 Dec 2024Updated: 4:08am, 24 Dec 2024

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded fighting against Ukraine’s incursion in Russia’s Kursk region.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce the Russian military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock border incursion in August.

Zelensky wrote on social media that “according to preliminary data, the number of North Korean soldiers killed and wounded in the Kursk region has already exceeded 3,000”.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said earlier on Monday that around 1,100 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded since entering combat earlier this month.

Zelensky on Monday criticised world leaders for doing “almost nothing” to counteract Russia’s military cooperation with North Korea. H said he had received a report from army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky on the situation in the Kursk region and warned of “risks of North Korea sending additional troops and military equipment to the Russian army”.

The Ukrainian president said the world needs to understand that “growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang” leads to a proportionate increase in “risk of destabilisation around the Korean peninsula and in neighbouring regions or waters”.