North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia near the Ukrainian border have temporarily withdrawn following weeks of heavy losses, Kyiv’s military has claimed.
A Ukrainian special forces commander tasked with retrieving DNA samples from North Korean soldiers claimed Pyongyang’s troops had retreated from one of the axes of the Kursk region, where they have been mobilised since last December, for roughly a fortnight.
It follows claims by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky last week that around a third of the 11,000 North Korean troops deployed to Kursk have already been wounded or killed.
The withdrawal was confirmed by Colonel Oleksandr Kindratenko, a spokesperson of the Special Operations Forces.
“[They] will be back soon,” the commander, who goes by the call sign “Puls”, reportedly said. South Korean intelligence has claimed that Kim Jong Un is also planning to send more troops to Russia.
It is unclear why the troops appear to have withdrawn, but the commander added that the North Korean troops had suffered significant losses due to an apparent lack of awareness about aerial threats. They have also been committing suicide to avoid being captured by Ukraine, which Kyiv says shows the extent of these troops’ brainwashing.
Colonel Kindratenko said that they were attacking on foot in groups of up to 60 soldiers, like “something out of World War II”. It made them easy targets for Ukrainian drones, which have become a staple of this war, as well as artillery.
It comes as overnight Russian air attacks wounded eight people, set a private business on fire, and damaged residential buildings around Ukraine, local officials said on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 65 drones and 28 more did not reach their targets in the barrage.
A 62-year-old woman was taken to hospital for treatment and a 66-year-old man injured when drone debris damaged several houses in the Kharkiv district including the city of the same name, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Emergency services were called soon after midnight to a private business that caught fire in Kharkiv due to the Russian drone attack, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said the fire engulfed production facilities. Two people suffered acute stress reactions, including a child, the emergency service said.
It was not immediately clear what facility was burning. Video footage showed massive flames coming from what looked like an industrial building.
Russia also launched a drone attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa, damaging several residential buildings and cars, and injuring four people in the city and the nearby area, its governor Oleh Kiper said.
After the attack impacted power and heating in the central town of Uman in the Cherkasy region, local services were working to restore the supply, according to the mayor, Iryna Pletnova.
The drone attack on the Kyiv region destroyed nine vehicles and damaged 27 more in the vintage car museum. It also damaged residential houses and cars around the region, without causing any casualties.
