North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk received false military documents with Russian names and places of birth, denounces the Ukrainian army, which accuses Russia of trying to hide the presence of foreign fighters on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s special operations forces say they killed three North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region of western Russia and seized their documents. In a statement, the Ukrainian army states that the documents “do not have all the stamps and photos, the patronymic names are given in the Russian manner and the place of birth is signed as the Republic of Tuva”, a Russian region in southern Siberia, on the border with Mongolia.
But the signatures on the documents are in Korean, which “indicates the true origin of these soldiers”, the statement added.
“This case confirms once again that Russia is resorting to all means to hide its losses on the battlefield and conceal the foreign presence,” the statement said.
According to US, Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence estimates, there are between 11,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops in Russia, some of whom have engaged in combat operations alongside tens of thousands of Russian forces to help recover parts of Kursk taken in a Ukrainian offensive in August.
North Korean troops appear to have suffered heavy losses in the region, according to US and Ukrainian officials, while officials in Kiev accuse Russia of trying to cover up its involvement.
According to a senior US official, North Korea has recorded “several hundred” casualties — both dead and injured — in Kursk since October. According to a South Korean lawmaker, about 100 North Korean soldiers have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured since they were sent to Kursk, according to the country’s intelligence services.
On December 17, Ukrainian special forces announced that, in just three days, 50 North Korean soldiers were killed and 47 injured while fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk.
A Ukrainian unit reported that the North Koreans – wearing different uniforms than the Russians – launched infantry attacks using “the same tactics that were used 70 years ago”, in an apparent reference to the Korean War.
Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have officially recognized the presence of North Korean troops in Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia is trying to hide North Korean troop losses on the battlefield by resorting to extreme tactics to disguise the identities of North Korean soldiers killed in action.
“The Russians are literally trying to burn the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in combat,” accused Zelensky, in a post on the social network X on December 17, accompanying a video that allegedly showed Russian soldiers setting fire to the bodies of soldiers. North Koreans.
At the same time, a Ukrainian frontline drone unit posted a video on December 15 that allegedly showed the bodies of more than 20 North Korean soldiers lined up in an icy field. The video quality was not good enough to verify the fighters’ identities.
Lt. Andriі Kovalenko of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said the Ukrainian unit captured the images before Russia was able to remove the bodies.
“They try to hide as much as possible the involvement of North Koreans in specific operations. Therefore, they usually place these bodies in a row, then tracked vehicles arrive and take the bodies away,” Kovalenko told the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform.
