Hundreds of North Korean troops have been killed fighting against Ukraine over the last few months, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) of South Korea said 300 of Pyongyang’s troops have been killed and another 2,700 wounded since joining Vladimir Putin’s forces last year.
The agency assessed that the North Koreans are struggling to adapt to drones and other elements of modern warfare. They are further disadvantaged by the crude tactics of their Russian commanders, who have thrown them in assault campaigns without providing rear-fire support, according to Lee Seong Kweun, an MP who attended the agency's closed-door briefing.
"The current battlefield environment, combined with drones and other technologies, have created situations North Korean soldiers have never encountered before," Moon Seong Mook, a retired South Korean brigadier general, said. "They are also being deployed in large numbers in wide-open fields, where there is no place to hide, in continuous battles to retake the area, and that seems to be where the casualties are coming from."
The intelligence agency said memos found on dead North Korean soldiers indicated that they had been ordered to commit suicide before being captured, according to Mr Lee. The agency said one North Korean soldier, facing the threat of being captured by Ukrainian forces, shouted "General Kim Jong Un" and tried to detonate a hand grenade before he was shot and killed.
Kim Jong Un has sent at least 11,000 soldiers to Russia since October to help the Russian military fight off Kyiv’s cross-border incursion into Kursk which began in August.
In return for the conscripts and supplies of missiles and artillery shells, Putin is understood to be sending sanction-busting fuel to North Korea and helping Kim launch spy satellites.
On Saturday, the last written notes of a North Korean soldier described how Pyongyang’s troops are ordered to stand within seven metres of Kyiv’s drones as covering soldiers try to shoot them down.
On one notebook page, a crude drawing shows a stickman soldier breaking cover to attract the attention of a drone, while his two comrades lie in wait to shoot it down.
“When the bait stands still, the drone will stop and it will be shot down,” the soldier wrote in scrawled handwriting, translated by The Wall Street Journal.
The diary, which was found on 21 December and has been authenticated by experts, was written by a young soldier who died in a firefight alongside two compatriots, Ukraine’s special forces said.
It was published a day after Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had captured two North Korean soldiers and proposed a prisoner swap with Pyongyang.
In the video shared by Mr Zelensky on Sunday, both soldiers appear injured and were likely speaking under duress.
One of the soldiers, who appears in the video lying down, said he did not know he was fighting in a war against Ukraine and that his commanders told him it was a training exercise.
One of the prisoners carried a Russian military ID card that Mr Zelensky claimed was “issued in the name of another person”.
The Ukrainian intelligence agency SBU showed an ID card issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia.
The interrogator then asked the pair if they wanted to return to South Korea, with one suggesting he would rather stay in Ukraine but would do what he was told.
Mr Zelensky said on Sunday: “Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organise their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia.
“In addition to the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others.”
He added that any captured North Koreans “who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean language will be given that opportunity”.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service confirmed its participation in the questioning of the North Korean soldiers by Ukrainian authorities. The agency said the soldiers haven't expressed a request to resettle in South Korea, according to two lawmakers who attended the meeting.
The agency said it was willing to discuss the matter with Ukrainian authorities if the soldiers eventually do ask to go to South Korea. About 34,000 North Koreans have defected to capitalist rival South Korea to avoid economic hardship and political suppression at home, mostly since the late 1990s.
Koo Byoungsam, spokesperson of South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said facilitating the asylum of the North Korean soldiers would require "legal reviews, including on international law, and consultations with related nations."
"There's nothing we can say at the current stage," Mr Koo said.
Associated Press contributed to this report
