SEOUL: North Korean troopers beforehand preventing alongside Russia’s military on the Kursk entrance line seem to not have been engaged in fight since mid-January, South Korea’s spy company instructed AFP on Tuesday (Feb 4), after Ukraine claimed that they had been withdrawn following heavy losses.
“Since mid-January, it seems that the North Korean troops deployed to the Kursk area of Russia haven’t engaged in fight,” South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service stated.
“One motive for this can be the incidence of many casualties, however the precise particulars are nonetheless being monitored,” it added in a press release.
Ukraine’s army stated on Friday that it believed North Korean soldiers deployed to the front line in Kursk had been “withdrawn” after suffering heavy losses.
Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence businesses say Pyongyang deployed greater than 10,000 troops to assist Russian forces preventing in its western Kursk area, the place Ukraine launched a shock cross-border offensive in August.
Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow have formally confirmed the troop deployment, however the two nations signed an settlement, together with a mutual defence component, when Russian President Vladimir Putin made a uncommon go to to the nuclear-armed North final yr.
Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements within the operation – the primary time a overseas military had crossed into Russian territory since World Struggle II – in an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin.
The North Korean deployment was supposed to strengthen Russia’s military and assist it expel Ukraine’s troops, however almost six months on, Ukraine nonetheless holds swathes of Russian territory.
