Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region and warned that Pyongyang could send more personnel and equipment to Moscow's army .
“There is a risk that North Korea will send additional troops and military equipment to the Russian army,” Zelenskyy said on X after receiving a report from his top military chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.
“We will have substantial answers to this,” Zelenskyy said.
The estimate of North Korean losses is higher than that given by Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), which said on Monday that at least 1,100 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded.
The assessment was in line with a briefing last week by South Korea's intelligence agency, which reported about 100 dead with another 1,000 injured in the area.
Zelenskyy said that he called preliminary data. Reuters could not independently verify reports of combat casualties.
Reports claim that 12,000 troops have already been deployed
Russia has neither confirmed nor denied that the North Koreans are on its side. Pyongyang initially dismissed reports of military deployments as “fake news,” but a North Korean official has said such deployments would be legal.
According to Ukrainian and related estimates, North Korea has sent about 12,000 troops to Russia.
Some of them were sent to fight in Russia's Kursk region, where Ukraine still holds a patch of land after a major cross-border attack in August.
JCS said it has found indications that Pyongyang plans to produce suicide drones that will be sent to Russia, in addition to the already supplied 240mm multiple rocket launchers and self-propelled howitzers. movable 170mm.
Kyiv continues to press allies for a tougher response because it says Moscow and Pyongyang's transfer of war know-how and weapons technologies is a global threat.
“For the world, the cost of restoring stability is always much higher than the cost of effectively putting pressure on those who destabilize the situation and destroy lives,” Zelenskyy said.
