Reports surfaced of injured North Korean soldiers being treated at Russian hospitals after suffering heavy losses in Russia during combat operations against Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian outlet evocation.info on Tuesday, a hospital on Pirogova Street in Russia received over 100 North Korean soldiers with various injuries in recent days.
Footage from the hospital shows Asian men with visible injuries, such as casts or limps, waiting in line or resting in shared hospital rooms. The authenticity of the footage has not been independently verified.
Moscow’s intensified military operations against Ukrainian forces led to a significant rise in casualties among North Korean troops deployed to support Russia, with reports on Tuesday revealing “several hundred” North Korean soldiers killed in action.
This marks a sharp increase from the “several dozens” of casualties confirmed by U.S. officials just a day earlier.
A senior U.S. military official, speaking anonymously, confirmed that North Korean forces fighting in Russia’s Kursk region suffered “several hundred” casualties, according to foreign media outlets such as Reuters and AFP.
These troops ranged from “lower-level troops to very near the top,” the U.S. official added.
On Monday, National Security Council Communications Adviser John Kirby officially acknowledged “several dozens” of North Korean casualties, while the number escalated dramatically.
Officials estimate that North Korea sent approximately 12,000 troops to Russia’s western Kursk, a region in Russia where Ukrainian forces captured territory earlier this year. The troops were integrated into Russian units and primarily deployed in infantry roles.
While some North Korean soldiers were killed in Ukraine in the past, these losses were on a much smaller scale.
In just three days of fighting in the Kursk region, from Saturday to Monday, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) claimed to have killed 50 North Korean soldiers and injured 47 more. The SOF also released footage showing a first-person-view drone successfully striking troops and equipment.
Ukrainian officials described North Korean tactics as outdated and ill-suited for modern warfare.
“The style of the war [of North Korean troops] is typical Soviet of the 1950s, 1960s,” Mykhailo Makaruk, a soldier with the SOF, told Radio Free Asia. “it’s a perfect target for our artillery shells and for the drones. They go in like zombies to our position, they come in and come in.”
Ukrainian soldiers noted that North Korean formations were unusually large and exposed compared to Russian troops, who typically move in smaller, more concealed groups.
“It felt like playing a computer simulator on easy mode,” Artem, a Ukrainian drone operator, told The Washington Post. “They’re different from the Russians, who have learned to run or hide from drones, only shooting at them from cover. The [North] Koreans just shoot indiscriminately, standing there firing.”
The United States and its allies ramped up diplomatic pressure on North Korea amid confirmed reports of its military cooperation with Russia.
On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging North Korea to improve its human rights record. Additionally, the Biden administration, leveraging its role as president of the UN Security Council this month, scheduled a briefing to discuss North Korea’s deepening military ties with Russia, focused on nonproliferation concerns.
BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]
