TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – North Korea is believed to have suffered over 6,000 casualties, including both deaths and injuries, while assisting Russian forces against Ukraine in the western Russian region of Kursk, according to the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense.
The information was shared in a statement on social media platform X on Sunday and was reported by the Kyiv Independent. This update comes two months after the UK first estimated that, by early April 2025, approximately 5,000 North Korean troops had become casualties in the area.
“The total casualties amount to more than half of the approximately 11,000 DPRK troops initially deployed to the Kursk region,” said the Ministry of Defense, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as quoted by The Korea Herald.
“Significant DPRK casualty rates have almost certainly been sustained primarily through large, highly attritional dismounted assaults,” the ministry added.
The UK defense ministry noted that North Korea’s military operations in the conflict have so far been limited to the Kursk region. The deployment of North Korean troops to Ukraine likely received direct approval from both Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Meanwhile, South Korean military intelligence estimates that North Korea sent an additional 3,000 troops to Kursk in 2025, after deploying 11,000 soldiers to Russia the previous year.
In a briefing to lawmakers in late April, South Korea’s intelligence agency reported that 4,700 North Korean soldiers had become casualties in the war, with around 600 confirmed fatalities.
Russia officially acknowledged in April 2025 that North Korean forces had joined combat operations in Kursk. However, previous reports suggest North Korea may have been involved as early as fall 2024.
Ukraine began a cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast in August 2024. This marked the first significant foreign military incursion into Russian territory since World War II.
The purpose of the offensive was to prevent Russia from launching an attack on neighboring Sumy Oblast and to divert Russian troops from the heavily contested Donbas region.
In March 2025, Russia launched counteroffensives to reclaim lost ground, eventually pushing Ukrainian forces out of much of the territory they had initially seized.
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