The Russian army has lost almost 250,000 soldiers in the war against Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Feb. 15 during his speech at the Munich Security Conference.
Zelensky claimed that Moscow lost nearly 20,000 soldiers in the battles for Russia's Kursk Oblast alone.
In addition, a total of over 610,000 Russian troops have been wounded since Feb. 24, 2022, according to the president.
Zelensky's estimate of Russian losses matches that of the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. According to the military, Russia has lost 856,660 troops in Ukraine since 2022.
"We completely destroyed the North Korean units that (Vladimir) Putin had to bring in because his own forces weren’t enough to hold back our counteroffensive," Zelensky said, speaking of Ukraine's Kursk operation.
"For over six months now, Ukrainians have been holding a foothold inside Russian territory, even though it was Russia that wanted to create a 'buffer zone' inside our land," he added.
Up to 12,000 North Korean troops were deployed to Kursk Oblast last fall to support Russian forces in countering a Ukrainian incursion launched in early August 2024.
Zelensky previously said that North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine have suffered 4,000 casualties, two-thirds of whom have been killed.
The heavy losses of the North Korean army may be related to its lack of combat experience and the tactic of human waves attacks with a limited amount of equipment, Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said in an interview with The War Zone magazine published on Feb. 4.
Kyiv launched a surprise cross-border incursion into Kursk in August 2024, initially capturing about 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) of Russian territory. While Ukrainian forces have lost roughly half that area since, they recently advanced 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) in the region in a new offensive.
Kateryna Hodunova
(Updated: )
