Kremlin declines to comment on reports N.Koreans withdrawn from front

MOSCOW (AFP): The Kremlin on Friday declined to comment on reports that North Korean soldiers fighting with Russia’s army had been pulled back from the front line.

Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say Pyongyang had deployed more than 10,000 troops to support Russia’s forces fighting in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine is mounting a cross-border offensive.

Citing US and Ukrainian officials, the New York Times on Thursday reported that the North Korean troops had been pulled back from the front and had not been seen fighting there for around two weeks, after suffering heavy casualties in combat.

Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak on Wednesday said that “some North Korean units have been pulled back from the front line in the Kursk region, according to reports from Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces.”

Asked on Friday about the reports, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment.

“There are a lot of different arguments out there, both right and wrong,” he told reporters.

“It’s not worth commenting on every time,” he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has published footage of what he said were captured North Korean soldiers taken by Ukraine’s forces in the Kursk region.

Kyiv and the West decried the deployment of North Korean fighters as a major escalation in the three-year conflict.