North Korean soldiers being deployed to Ukraine by Russia are allegedly killing themselves to avoid being captured, US sources have revealed.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday that some of the soldiers had taken their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces.
These suicides, he said, were ‘likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured.’
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service also confirmed on Friday that a North Korean soldier who had been captured the previous day had died.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Telegram statement Friday that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers had died or been injured in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year.
‘The number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region already exceeds 3,000 people,’ he said.
‘Russia is simply disposing of them in assaults. Why the Koreans should fight for Putin is a question that no normal person on Earth can answer.’
But Russia has since gathered thousands of troops in a brutal counterattack.
Kirby, however, quoted a lower death toll among North Koreans, saying more than 1,000 soldiers have died just in the past week.
He said that Russian and North Korean leaders view the North Koreans as expendable and give them orders to conduct ‘hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defences’.
Kirby noted that these soldiers seem to have been indoctrinated and insist on attacking even when it is clear that this would be unsuccessful.
‘We also have reports of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured,’ Kirby said.
He warned that regardless of all the equipment the Russian military is providing their troops, the commanders will require a frequent supply of body bags because ‘they’re clearly going to need it’.
To supplement its counter attack, Moscow turned to its ally Pyongyang, which, according to estimates by the US, has deployed an estimated 11,000 soldiers in Ukraine.
Kirby said the North Koreans are conducting ‘massed, dismounted assaults against Ukrainian positions in Kursk.’
While these ‘human wave tactics’ were proven to be ineffective, he acknowledged that Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was making it difficult for Ukrainians to weather the harsh winter.
‘These North Korean soldiers appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile,’ Kirby said.
The precise number of North Korean soldiers who killed themselves to avoid capture remains unclear.
Zelensky said Friday that while ‘several’ North Korean soldiers were captured, they were ‘seriously wounded and could not be resuscitated,’ suggesting that some of them may have also been killed by comrades.
These troops were being sent to fight with ‘minimal protection,’ he said, and were suffering a ‘great deal’ of losses.
It comes days after footage of a Ukrainian special operations crew targeting a North Korean position in Kursk with kamikaze drones emerged on Telegram.
Dramatic video showed the drones circling troops as they scrambled to get away in an open field in Kurshchina, shared by the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine earlier this week.
The crew said it had killed 77 and wounded as many as 40 North Korean soldiers over a three day period of fighting in the region.
North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A landmark defence pact between Pyongyang and Moscow signed in June came into force this month, with Russian President Vladimir Putin hailing it as a ‘breakthrough document’.
North Korean state media said Friday that Putin sent a New Year’s message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying ‘the bilateral ties between our two countries have been elevated after our talks in June in Pyongyang’.
Ukraine’s allies have called Pyongyang’s growing involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine a ‘dangerous expansion’ of the conflict.