North Korean soldiers reported killed fighting alongside Russia in Ukraine

Ukraine’s military intelligence and the Pentagon have said that Ukrainian troops have killed and injured a number of North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as GUR, said on Monday that North Korean army units had suffered “significant losses” with “at least 30 soldiers” killed and wounded in the Kursk region, near the villages of Plekhovo, Vorobzha and Martynovka.

“Also in the area of ​​the village of Kurilovka, at least three North Korean servicemen went missing,” the GUR added in a statement posted to its Telegram channel on Monday.

Speaking to journalists in Washington, DC, Pentagon spokesperson Major-General Pat Ryder backed up the Ukrainian Army’s claim, saying that the United States had found “indications” North Korean troops had been “killed and injured” in combat in Kursk.

The Kremlin, which rarely provides details on casualties among its troops and those of its allies, directed a request for comment from the Associated Press news agency to the Russian Ministry of Defence, which did not immediately reply.Most of the North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, which has been under partial Ukrainian control since Kyiv’s surprise incursion into Russian territory in August.