WEB DESK: Approximately 600 North Korean soldiers have lost their lives while participating in Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
According to South Korean lawmakers who cited intelligence from their National Intelligence Service (NIS). Following a closed-door briefing on Wednesday, legislators Lee Seong-kweun and Kim Byung-kee revealed to the media that an estimated 4,700 North Koreans have either been killed or wounded in the conflict to date.
These statements come shortly after North Korea acknowledged, for the first time, the deployment of troops to aid Russia in its military efforts. In a report from the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) earlier this week.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as officially sanctioning the troop deployment to “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers and liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces.”
The latest casualty figures represent a considerable increase from the NIS’s previous assessment in January, which indicated that around 300 North Korean soldiers had died in the war.
