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At least 100 North Korean soldiers have been killed in fighting in the Ukraine war since entering combat on the Russian side earlier this month, a South Korean MP has said.
Lee Sung-kwon, speaking to reporters after parliament was briefed by the country’s National Intelligence Service, said another 1,000 had been injured.
He said the casualties included high-ranking officials, and could be explained by the troops lack of familiarity with the terrain, and with drone warfare.
The first reports of North Korean casualties came earlier this week. It emerged in October that the North had sent 10,000 troops to help Russia’s war effort.
On Monday a US Pentagon spokesman said North Koreans had been killed, without giving a number, and a day later an unnamed US official said that there had been “several hundred” killed or wounded.
The BBC has not independently verified the claims.
The North Korean troops, none of whom will have any previous combat experience, are believed to have spent their first weeks in Russia in training and then in support roles.
The casualties are thought to have occurred in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainians are defending a small area of territory captured during a surprise incursion in August.
Last Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had begun to use a “significant number” of North Koreans in its assaults in Kursk.
They are not thought to have been deployed in Ukraine itself, where Russian troops have been advancing in eastern parts of the country in recent months
