(Reuters) -North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine, with a thousand of their troops killed or wounded in the last week alone in Russia’s Kursk region, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday.
The number far exceeds the figure U.S. officials have previously provided.
“It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses,” Kirby said, describing the North Korean troops’ offensive as “massed, dismounted assaults.”
North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Russia’s U.N. mission declined to comment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said North Korean forces had sustained “very significant” losses and were being sent into battle with only minimal protection from the Russian forces.
“We see that neither the Russian military nor their North Korean overseers have any interest in ensuring the survival of these North Koreans,” he said.
“Everything is set up so that it is impossible for us to capture them. There are instances in which they are executed by their own forces. Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection.”
He said Ukrainian forces had managed to take a few North Korean soldiers prisoner “but they were severely wounded and it was not possible to save their lives.”
Koreans should not be losing their lives in a war in Europe, he said, and if China was sincere in not wanting the war to expand, “it needs to exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang.”
On Monday, Zelenskiy said more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed and wounded in Kursk region. He said he was citing preliminary data.
On Dec. 17, a U.S. military official said North Korea had suffered several hundred casualties in Kursk region.
Asked about what ranks the North Korean casualties included, the military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was from lower-level troops to “very near to the top.”
In his comments, White House spokesperson Kirby said President Joe Biden would likely approve another security assistance package for Ukraine in coming days.
Earlier this week, Biden condemned Russia’s Christmas Day attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and some of its cities and asked the Defense Department to continue its surge of weapons to Ukraine.
Reuters was unable to independently verify reports of combat losses or accounts from either side.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Howard Goller, Ron Popeski and Chris Reese)
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