North Korea has suffered thousands of casualties fighting for Russia

Thousands of North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine have been killed or wounded in action according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 21st, Zelensky said that North Korea has suffered thousands of casualties in the Kursk region. 

“In Kursk, there are over 60,000 Russian soldiers, along with 12,000 North Koreans, of whom 4,000 have already been killed,” Zelesnky noted according to United24. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ukr_sof

“I am deeply thankful to the Ukrainian Armed Forces for their efforts on the Kursk front,” The Ukrainian President added. 

Zelensky also said that Russia was turning into a version of North Korea where human life meant little. It was a harsh rebuke of Moscow’s growing casualty numbers. 

Zelensky's remarks came less than a week after he revealed that Ukrainian special forces had captured Ukraine’s first North Korean prisoners of war (POWs), which were transferred to Kyiv. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ukr_sof

Ukraine transported its first North Korean POWs to Kyiv according to Zelensky, who released photos and specific details, including the identities and deployment dates to Russia, of the two soldiers online. This incident marked a significant new development in the ongoing conflict.

“Our soldiers have captured North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote on X. 

The Ukrainian President shared several photos of soldiers, including pictures showing their current condition, the rooms that they were being kept in in Kyiv, and pictures of one soldier's passport. The soldiers appeared to be in good condition. 

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) also shared a video of the soldiers on January 11th. A report from the security service also noted that the North Korean captives had revealed some details about who they were and when they arrived in Russia. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @V_Zelenskiy_official

“At the time of capture, one of the foreigners had a Russian military ID card issued in the name of another person with registration in the Republic of Tuva, Russian Federation. The other had no documents at all,” the SBU report noted. 

One soldier revealed that he had been issued a ticket to travel to Russia in the autumn of 2024 and said some North Korean units received a week's worth of interoperability from the Russian forces. 

The same soldier also said that he was born in 2005 and had served as a rifleman in the North Korean military since 2021. 

The soldier also revealed that he was told he would be going to Russia for training, much like Russian troops were during the invasion in 2022. 

The other soldier confirmed some of the details revealed by his comrade according to the SBU. He told the security service that he was born in 1999 and had served in the North Korean military since 2016 as a scout sniper. 

"The POWs do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian, so communication with them is carried out through interpreters of Korean, in cooperation with [the] South Korean [National Intelligence Service],” the report explained. 

Capturing the North Korean soldiers wasn’t an easy task. Zelensky noted that Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel often opt to execute wounded soldiers as a way to erase evidence of Pyongyang’s involvement in the war. 

“I am grateful to the soldiers of Tactical Group No. 84 of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as our paratroopers, who captured these two individuals,” Zelensky wrote. 

Zelensky added that the captured North Koreans would receive any necessary medical assistance they required, something he noted Ukraine does for all prisoners of war. The soldiers would also be allowed to speak with journalists. 

Photo Credit: Screenshot / YouTube SecurityServiceUkraine

“I have instructed the Security Service of Ukraine to grant journalists access to these prisoners,” Zelensky wrote before adding that “the world needs to know the truth about what is happening.”

Photo Credit: Screenshot / YouTube SecurityServiceUkraine

The Ukrainian President’s comments came just days after Kyiv had launched an offensive in Kursk and about 6 months after it began its first assault into the Russian border region. 

According to the Associated Press, a senior U.S. military official confirmed in December 2024 that hundreds of North Korean soldiers were fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk. 

On January 12th, Zelensky published a video of the first interrogation with the two captured North Korean soldiers on his Facebook page and said Ukraine was ready to return them to their home country as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia according to Ukrainska Pravda.

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