About 600 North Korean soldiers killed in Russia's war against Ukraine, Seoul says

Pyongyang this week confirmed for the first time that it had sent troops to help Russia recapture parts of the Kursk region from Ukrainian forces.

About 600 North Korean troops have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukrainian forces, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers on Wednesday.North Korea has suffered some 4,700 casualties — including injuries and deaths — the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) told a parliamentary committee.About 2,000 injured soldiers were repatriated to North Korea by air or train between January and March, according to the NIS. The dead soldiers were cremated in Russia before their remains were sent back home, the intelligence agency said. The assessment came two days after Pyongyang confirmed for the first time that it had sent troops to help Russia recapture parts of the Kursk region, which Ukraine took control of in a surprise incursion last year. Russia announced on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had been removed from Kursk, a claim that could not be independently verified.On Monday, North Korea announced that leader Kim Jong-un had decided to deploy troops to "annihilate and wipe out the ... occupiers and liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces".Russian President Vladimir Putin later issued a statement thanking North Korea and promising not to forget the "sacrifices" of the country's soldiers.The leaders said the North Korean deployment was made under their nations' landmark 2024 defence treaty, which requires each side to provide aid if the other is attacked.The US, South Korea and their partners say North Korea has been supplying vast amounts of conventional weapons to replenish Russia’s depleted stocks. They suspect Moscow is providing Pyongyang with military and economic assistance in return.Last autumn, Ukraine, the US and South Korea said that North Korea had deployed a 10,000-12,000 contingent to Russia to fight in Kursk. In March, South Korea's army said that Pyongyang sent about 3,000 additional troops to Russia earlier this year.During its Wednesday briefing, the NIS said Russia has given North Korea air defence missiles, electronic warfare equipment, drones and technology for spy satellite launches.Pyongyang has also sent 15,000 North Korean labourers to Russia under bilateral industrial cooperation programmes, according to the spy agency. "After six months of participation in the war, the North Korean military has become less inept, and its combat capability has significantly improved as it becomes accustomed to using new weapons such as drones," said lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun, a member of South Korea's parliamentary intelligence committee.