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North Korean troops are attacking Ukrainian positions in Russia’s western Kursk region, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday, as Russia continues its onslaught on Ukraine’s energy grid into the winter.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Kirby said that North Korean units were launching “massed dismounted assaults” against Ukrainian positions in Kursk, indicating that the North Korean troops are largely fighting on foot. Kirby added that the soldiers are “highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile.” They are also dying by suicide, potentially out of fear of reprisals against their families if they are captured as prisoners of war, he noted.
While the “human wave tactics” were largely ineffective and were resulting in “heavy casualties” for North Korean forces, Kirby acknowledged that Russia is making “plodding progress” in Ukraine’s eastern region and that Russia is continuing its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
He added that the U.S. is preparing more security assistance to help Kyiv stave off the attacks and hit back hard against Russia and its North Korean troops. Kirby stated that “nothing has changed” when it comes to U.S. restrictions on Ukraine’s use of donated weapons against targets in Russian territory, be they Russian or North Korean.
Kirby’s comments are the latest showing that North Korean troops are actively being deployed by Russia against Ukraine as part of its nearly three-year invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced earlier in December that North Koreans were being organized into battalions to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine managed to stage an unexpected offensive this summer and hold on to several cities in the border region over the last four months.
South Korea’s spy agency estimates that at least 11,000 North Korean troops were sent to Russia and that casualties — which include both dead and injured soldiers — number in the thousands.
“It remains deeply troubling that Putin has decided to use foreign troops on Russian soil to defend that soil, which is a historic move that hasn’t been done for decades,“ Kirby said. “I hope they’re loading up their commanders with a bunch of body bags, because they’re clearly going to need them.”
