UK Intelligence Estimates 6,000 North Korean Casualties in Kursk

More than 6,000 North Korean soldiers are believed to have been injured or killed while fighting in Russia’s Kursk region in support of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, according to estimates by British intelligence, underscoring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s role as a key ally of President Vladimir Putin in a war now in its fourth year.

The number amounts to more than half of the 11,000 North Korean troops initially deployed to the Kursk region, the UK Defence Ministry said in a post on the X social media platform. “Significant DPRK casualty rates have almost certainly been sustained primarily through large, highly attritional dismounted assaults,” the statement said. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.