A thousand North Korean troops who have been fighting in the Kursk region of Russia have been killed in Vladimir Putin ’s war with Ukraine, officials have said. Western officials have told the BBC that 36 per cent of North Korean forces fighting in Russia had been killed, injured or captured by mid-January.

It will mostly be missile and artillery troops who typically operate hundreds of tubed and rocket artillery systems as well as the KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles Pyongyang has already provided Moscow,

North Korean soldiers, who are fighting alongside the russians against the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk Oblast, executed Ukrainians who tried to

Pyongyang's monthly troop losses could skyrocket if it deploys more troops to the frontlines in Kursk and continues sustaining high losses.

UK Defence Intelligence has analysed that as of January 2025, North Korea has already lost about 4,000 military personnel in the Russian-Ukrainian war who took part in the fighting in Russiaʼs Kursk Oblast.

Analysts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have indicated that the new deployment of North Korean troops will sustain the current pace of infantry assaults in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. However,