North Korean troops ‘withdrawn’ from Russia’s Kursk front line, says Ukraine
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A photograph posted to social media by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in January showing a captured soldier who was said to be North Korean.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
KYIV - Ukraine believes North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russia’s army on the Kursk front line have been “withdrawn” after suffering heavy losses, a military spokesman told AFP on Jan 31.
Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say Pyongyang deployed more than 10,000 troops to support Russia’s forces fighting in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock cross-border offensive
Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements in the operation – the first time a foreign army had crossed into Russian territory since World War II – in an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin.
The North Korean deployment – never officially confirmed by Moscow or Pyongyang – was supposed to reinforce Russia’s army
But nearly six months on, Ukraine still holds on to swathes of Russian territory, something President Volodymyr Zelensky sees as a key bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Moscow.
“Over the past three weeks, we have not seen or detected any activity or military clashes with the North Koreans,” Mr Oleksandr Kindratenko, spokesman for the Special Operations Forces, told AFP.
“We believe that they have been withdrawn because of the heavy losses that were inflicted,” he added.
Ukraine previously said it had captured or killed several North Korean soldiers
Mr Zelensky has published footage of interrogations with what he said were North Korean prisoners of war captured by his army
Ukrainian officials have said that wounded North Korean troops were blowing themselves up with grenades rather than being taken alive.
Kremlin refuses to comment
Asked earlier on Jan 31 about reports that the North Korean soldiers had been withdrawn, the Kremlin declined to comment.
“There are a lot of different arguments out there, both right and wrong,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“It’s not worth commenting every time,” he added.
Kyiv and the West had decried their deployment as a major escalation in the three-year conflict.
Ukraine says around 2,000 Russian civilians live in areas under its occupation, mostly cut off from contact with relatives on the other side of the new front line.
Discontent has been growing in the Russian border region at the failure of the local authorities to secure their return to Moscow-controlled territory or provide updates on their status.
Despite Ukraine’s hold on part of the Kursk region, Russia has been advancing elsewhere across the 1,000km front.
Moscow’s army on Jan 31 said it had captured another village, Novovasylivka, in eastern Ukraine, where its forces are advancing on a key logistics hub and a road that is crucial for military supplies.
Novovasylivka is close to the key hub of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, and to the internal border with Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, which so far has been spared ground combat.
Russia in 2022 said it was annexing the Donetsk region – despite not having it under full control – but has not publicly made territorial claims on Dnipropetrovsk. AFP
