North Korean soldiers fighting in Russia against Ukraine suffered heavy casualties, Kyiv said
North Korean troops have suffered heavy losses during fighting in Russia’s Kursk region and are facing operational difficulties as a result of Ukraine’s offensive, Ukraine’s intelligence service said on Thursday.
The intelligence agency, known by its code name GUR, said Ukrainian strikes near Novoivanovka caused heavy casualties to North Korean units.
It said the North Korean military also faced supply problems and a shortage of drinking water.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week that 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed and wounded in the fighting in the Kursk region.
It marked Ukraine’s first significant estimate of North Korean casualties in weeks after Kyiv announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help in the three-year war.
Meanwhile, the South Korean news agency, Yonhap, on Friday reported that the country’s intelligence agency said that a wounded North Korean soldier was captured alive.
The agency appeared to confirm earlier reports that a North Korean soldier sent to fight against Russia had been kidnapped by Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian troops began raiding the Kursk region in August, which caused a major blow to Russia’s reputation and forced it to send some of its troops to eastern Ukraine, where it suppressed a slow offensive.
The Russian army managed to regain some territory in the Kursk region, but failed to completely dislodge the Ukrainian forces.
Russia is intensifying attacks on Ukraine
At the same time, Russia has sought to crush Ukrainian resistance with waves of cruise missiles and drone strikes against Ukraine’s electricity grid and other infrastructure.
The latest attack on Christmas morning involved 78 missiles and 106 drones that hit power plants, Ukraine’s military said. It claims to have intercepted 59 missiles and 54 drones and stopped another 52 drones.
On Thursday, Russia attacked Ukraine with 31 bombs that exploded. 20 were shot down and another 11 missed their target due to bad weather, the Ukrainian military said.
Russia launched a massive barrage of missiles and drones targeting energy infrastructure in Ukraine on Wednesday, hitting a hot power plant and forcing Ukrainians to take shelter in substations on Christmas morning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than 70 missiles and 100 drones were used to attack Ukraine’s energy sources, in a statement posted on X.
As part of the daily crackdown, the Russian military also struck a central market in Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region with a drone, injuring eight people, according to local authorities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Thursday that Russia could strike Ukraine again with the new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile that was first used in the Nov. 21 strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Speaking to reporters, Putin said that Russia only has a few Oreshnik missiles, but added that it would not hesitate to use them in Ukraine.
“We are not in a hurry to use them, because those are powerful weapons that are intended to do certain tasks,” he said. “But we will not rule out their use today or tomorrow if necessary.”
Putin said Russia had launched production of the new weapon and reaffirmed a plan to send Oreshnik missiles to Russia’s neighbor and ally Belarus, with acting President Alexander Lukashenko telling reporters Thursday that his country could host 10 or more.
Vladimir Putin says his troops will regain full control of the western Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an offensive last summer. But the Russian president, who held an annual press conference in Moscow on Thursday, would not give an exact date.
Ukraine took responsibility for its strikes. Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications said the military hit a factory in Kamensk-Shakhtynsky in Russia’s southern Rostov region that produces fuel for ballistic missiles.
“This strike is part of a comprehensive campaign to reduce the Russian military’s ability to attack Ukrainian civilians,” the statement said.
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