TAIPEI, Taiwan – South Korea’s main spy agency said North Korea had deployed more troops to Russia, with media reports estimating the number at more than 1,000.
As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine and the United States, although neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has acknowledged their presence.
“North Korea appears to have deployed some additional troops to support the Russian military. The exact scale is still being assessed,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, or NIS, said on Thursday.
The NIS added that it believed North Korean troops were redeployed to the Kursk front in the first week of February.
The spy agency said in January that North Korean troops in Kursk had not shown any sign of participating in combat since January, citing the large number of casualties as a possible reason.
“After scaling back about a month, North Korean troops were redeployed to the Kursk front in the first week of February,” said the NIS, without elaborating.
The NIS’s confirmation came a few hours after South Korean media outlets reported, citing unidentified military sources, that the North sent more than 1,000 additional troops to Russia between January and February.
The sources said, however, it was unclear whether the additional forces were sent to Kursk.
Ukraine said earlier that about 4,000 North Korean troops in Russia had been killed or wounded, with its leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimating that an additional 20,000 to 25,000 North Korean soldiers could be sent to Russia.
Separately, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in January that the North was accelerating preparations to send more troops to Russia amid an increasing number of casualties.
A Washington-based think tank reported in January that North Korean troops supporting Russia could be wiped out within three months if their high casualty rates persisted.
The Institute for the Study of War estimated that North Koreans had suffered about 92 casualties a day since early December 2024, with up to half of their forces in Russia’s Kursk wounded or killed.
President of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Seth Jones, also said that casualty rates among North Korean troops have been significant, possibly reaching 50%.
RELATED STORIES
‘I want to defect to South’: North Korean soldier captured in Kursk breaks silence
North Korean casualty rate in Kursk may be as high as 50%: US expert
North Korea ready to send 25,000 more troops to Russia: Zelenskyy
Possible mass surrender
A Ukrainian newspaper reported that a contingent of North Korean soldiers was trapped in Nikolske, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and were running out of supplies and unable to break free. Their mass surrender looked increasingly likely, Euromaidan Press reported.
Donetsk in the east of Ukraine has been one of the most heavily contested regions in the Russia-Ukraine war.
While North Korea’s initial deployments were primarily to Russia’s Kursk region, there has been evidence suggesting they are also in Donetsk. Ukrainian officials have reported casualties among North Korean soldiers in Donetsk.
Euromaidan Press citing Ukrainian military sources, reported on Wednesday that the North Koreans trapped in Nikolske were struggling with exhaustion and a lack of coordination with Russians. It did not say how many North Koreans were trapped.
Ukrainian forces had blocked escape attempts, further tightening their hold on the encirclement, the news outlet added. Drone footage showed weakened soldiers struggling to move, indicating a large-scale surrender of North Korean troops is increasingly likely, it reported.
To rescue the stranded North Korean troops, Russian forces launched a two-pronged assault but faced overwhelming resistance. Logistical challenges and language barriers hindered their effectiveness, said the report, adding that this indicates Russia’s diminishing reserves.
Edited by Mike Firn.