North Korean troops are suffering heavy losses while fighting in Russia's Kursk region and suffering from supply problems due to Ukrainian attacks, Ukrainian military intelligence said on Thursday.
The intelligence agency, known by the acronym GUR, said that Ukrainian strikes near Novivanovka caused heavy casualties on North Korean units.
They said North Korean soldiers were also facing supply issues and even a shortage of drinking water.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week that 3,000 North Korean soldiers were killed and wounded in the fighting in the Kursk region.
It marked Ukraine's first significant estimate of North Korean casualties several weeks after Kyiv announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the nearly three-year war.
Meanwhile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported early Friday that the country's intelligence agency said an injured North Korean soldier had been captured alive.
The group appeared to confirm earlier reports that a North Korean soldier had been sent to fight for the capture of Russia by Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian forces invaded the Kursk region in August, dealing a major blow to Russia's reputation and forcing it to send in some of its troops from eastern Ukraine, where pressing an offensive that was moving slowly.
The Russian army has been able to regain territory in the Kursk region, but they have not succeeded in completely displacing Ukrainian troops.
Russia launches attacks in Ukraine
At the same time, Russia has tried to break the resistance against Ukraine with waves of cruise missiles and drone strikes against Ukraine's power grid and other infrastructure.
The latest attack on Christmas morning involved 78 missiles and 106 drones hitting power facilities, the Ukrainian air force said. He said they intercepted 59 missiles and 54 drones and intercepted another 52 drones.
On Thursday, Russia attacked Ukraine with 31 exploding drones. Twenty were shot down and another 11 did not reach their target due to jamming, the Ukrainian air force said.
Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike on Wednesday targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure, hitting a thermal power plant and prompting Ukrainians to take shelter in metro stations on Christmas morning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than 70 missiles and 100 attack drones were used to strike Ukraine's energy sources, in a statement on X.
As part of the daily blockade, Russian forces also hit a central market in Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region with a drone, injuring eight people, according to local authorities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Thursday that Russia could strike Ukraine again with the new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile that was first used in a Nov. 21 strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Speaking to reporters, Putin said that Russia only has a few Oreshnik missiles, but said that it would not hesitate to use them on Ukraine.
“We are in no rush to use them, because they are powerful weapons for specific tasks,” he said. “But we would not use them today or tomorrow if necessary.”
Putin said that Russia has launched serial production of the new weapon and reaffirmed a plan to send some Oreshnik missiles to Russia's neighbor and Belarus, where the authoritarian President told Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday that his country could host 10 or more.
Vladimir Putin says his forces will regain full control of the western region of Kursk, where Ukrainian troops launched an offensive last summer. But the Russian president, who held an annual press conference in Moscow on Thursday, would not give a specific date.
Ukraine hit back with drone strikes of its own. Ukraine's Strategic Communications Center said the missile struck a plant in Kamensk-Shakhtynsky in Russia's southern Rostov region that makes launchers for ballistic missiles.
“This strike is part of a broader campaign to weaken the capabilities of the Russian armed forces to carry out terrorist attacks against Ukrainian civilians,” he said in a statement.
