About 2,000 North Korean troops killed in Russia deployment: Seoul spy agency

SEOUL (AFP) : Around 2,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to help Russia fight Ukraine are estimated to have been killed, Seoul’s spy agency said Tuesday, according to a lawmaker.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service said in April “the number of war dead was at least 600. But based on updated assessments, it now estimates the figure at around 2,000,” lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters after a briefing from the spy agency.

South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said the North sent more than 10,000 soldiers to Russia in 2024 — primarily to the Kursk region — along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems.

Lawmaker Lee said that the NIS believed that Pyongyang planned to deploy another 6,000 soldiers and engineers to Russia and that 1,000 had already arrived.

“It is assessed that out of the recent third deployment plan of 6,000 troops, around 1,000 combat engineers have arrived in Russia,” MP Lee said.

Earlier this year, Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the North would send builders and deminers to the Kursk region.

North Korea only confirmed it had deployed troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine in April and admitted that its soldiers had been killed in combat.

Since then, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met with the families of soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine and offered condolences for their “unbearable pain”.

State media has run images of an emotional Kim embracing a returned soldier who appeared overwhelmed, burying his face in the leader’s chest.

The leader was also seen kneeling before a portrait of a fallen soldier to pay his respects and placing medals and flowers beside images of the dead.

Russia and North Korea signed a military deal last year, including a mutual defence clause, during a rare visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to North Korea.