North Korean troops have not been fighting in Russia's Kursk Oblast since mid-January, the Yonhap news agency reported on Feb. 4, citing South Korea's intelligence agency.
This comes as another confirmation that the originally 11,000-12,000-strong North Korean contingent dispatched to aid Russia's war against Ukraine has been pulled back after suffering significant losses.
Moscow's key ally Pyongyang sent the troops last fall to help Russian forces oust Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the Russian border region of Kursk since early August 2024. Kyiv hopes to leverage its positions there in potential negotiations.
"Since mid-January, there have been no signs showing North Korean troops deployed to the Russian Kursk region engaging in battle," South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said, suggesting that heavy losses may have been one of the reasons for their withdrawal.
Seoul previously said that 300 North Korean soldiers had been killed and 2,700 injured fighting in the war, while the Ukrainian military estimated that as many as half of the contingent had been killed or wounded.
Experts interviewed by the Kyiv Independent connected North Korea’s high casualty rates to a lack of experience with modern warfare, the "human wave" tactics employed against entrenched Ukrainian positions, and the resolve of North Korean troops to avoid capture, even at the cost of their own lives.
At the same time, many Ukrainian military service members and observers described North Korean troops as highly motivated and presenting a significant challenge to Ukrainian soldiers.
After The New York Times reported on Jan. 30 that North Korean troops had been pulled from the front, a Special Operations Forces spokesperson confirmed for the Kyiv Independent that Ukraine's special forces had not faced Pyongyang's soldiers for three weeks.
"These are standard measures – rotation due to large casualties," a military intelligence source commented for the Kyiv Independent at the time, confirming the reports.
Previous comments by Ukrainian officials suggest that North Korean troops may have been taken off the front lines only temporarily. The military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said he expects Pyongyang to dispatch additional reinforcements to Russia, namely artillery units.
Daria Shulzhenko
