TAIPEI, Taiwan – Some North Korean soldiers are taking their own lives rather than surrender to Ukrainian forces in fighting in Russia’s Kursk region, said a senior U.S. official, while Ukraine reported instances of the North Korean military “executing” its own troops to prevent their capture.
The North Korean military has mounted a massive but “hopeless” attack on Ukrainian forces in Kursk on the orders of the Russian and North Korean military leadership, said White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
“These North Korean soldiers appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile,” Kirby told a briefing on Friday.
“We also have reports of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured.”
Kirby said North Korean human wave tactics “haven’t really been all that effective.”
“In fact, we assess that they’ve resulted in heavy casualties for these North Korean forces. Our estimate is that, to date, they have suffered more than 1,000 killed or wounded in this particular fighting in just the past week,” he added.
Neither Russia nor North Korea have acknowledged that North Korean soldiers are even involved in the fighting in Kursk, let alone made any comment about casualties.
Radio Free Asia was not able to independently verify accounts of the fighting and casualty estimates.
Up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to support its war efforts against Ukraine in Kursk, Ukraine and the U.S. say, and Ukraine has reported more than 3,000 casualties among them. South Korea estimates at least 1,100 North Koreans have been killed or wounded.
“It is clear that Russia and North Korean military leaders are treating the troops as consumables and ordering a hopeless attack on Ukraine,” Kirby said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also reported massive losses among North Korean soldiers in Kursk, saying that both Russia and North Korea had “no interest” in saving North Korean soldiers.
“They have many losses. A great deal. And we can see that the Russian military and the North Korean enforcers have no interest in the survival of these Koreans at all,” said Zelenskyy on Friday.
“Everything is arranged in a way that makes it impossible for us to capture the Koreans as prisoners – their own people are executing them, there are such cases.”
The Ukrainian leader urged China to influence North Korea, emphasizing Beijing’s responsibility to ensure the war in Ukraine does not escalate.
“The Korean nation should not lose its people in the battles in Europe. And this can be influenced, particularly by Korea’s neighbors, especially China,” said Zelenskyy.
“If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not escalate, it must exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang,” he added.
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China has not commented on North Korea’s deployment except to say the development of relations between Russia and North Korea was solely for them to decide.
But Kurt Campbell, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, said in November that China was increasingly uncomfortable about North Korea’s engagement with Russia and found their growing cooperation unnerving.
“The topic that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for Chinese interlocutors is the DPRK engagement with Russia,” said Cambell during a seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington thinktank, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“In some of the discussions we have had it seems we are informing them of things that they were unaware of with regard to DPRK pursuits, and they are concerned that Russian encouragement might lead the DPRK to contemplate either actions or military actions that might not be in China’s interests.
“China has not weighed in directly to criticise Russia but we do believe that the increasing coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow is unnerving them.”
Edited by RFA Staff.