All 12,000 troops sent by North Korea to bolster Vladimir Putin’s dwindling forces may be killed or wounded in the next three months, analysts have claimed.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which has been tracking developments on the frontlines of the invasion of Ukraine since it started in February 2022, said in an assessment on January 16 that ‘the entirety of this North Korean contingent in Kursk Oblast may be killed or wounded in roughly 12 weeks.’
In early January, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said 3,800 North Korean soldiers have so far been killed or wounded in Kursk.
They were first reported to be on the battlefield in early November, with significant fighting taking place from December.
The ISW estimates that the North Korean contingent is suffering losses of around 92 personnel a day, and will be completely gone by mid-April if they ‘continue to suffer similarly high casualty rates in the future.’
The group added: ‘North Korean forces will likely continue to suffer a larger ratio of wounded to killed in action – as is typical for armed conflict – and it is unclear if or when injured North Korean soldiers return to combat.’
Fighting has intensified in the Russian region of Kursk, with Ukrainian forces taking out whole columns of tanks and the battlefield littered with the corpses of Russian and North Korean soldiers, chilling pictures purportedly show.
Desperate to reclaim the region, part of which was first seized by Kyiv‘s forces back in August and has been defended by Ukraine since, Vladimir Putin has sent wave after wave of troops to die as ‘cannon fodder’.
So exhausted by the rate with which they have been killing their enemies, Ukrainian machine gunners are being replaced regularly, according to reports.
One soldier likened the onslaught to the bloody sieges of eastern Ukrainian cities like Bakhmut, saying that ‘after two hours [gun operators] couldn’t take it anymore.’
‘Here, the Russians need to take this territory at any cost, and are pouring all their strength into it, while we are giving everything we have to hold it,’ Sergeant Oleksandr, 46, a Ukrainian infantry platoon leader, told the New York Times.
‘We’re holding on, destroying, destroying, destroying – so much that it’s hard to even comprehend.’
Aiming to retake the town of Malaya Loknya, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the region, Putin’s forces reportedly launched a series of massive combined assaults involving some 50 armoured vehicles and hundreds of soldiers.
Ukrainian forces reportedly decimated the columns by disabling the lead vehicles with landmines and drone strikes, forcing those behind them to stop in their tracks.
