Seoul said hundreds of North Korean troops were killed while fighting Ukraine.
South Korean lawmakers, in the capacity of the country’s intelligence agency, said about 600 North Korean troops were killed in a total deployment of 15,000 Russia against Ukraine.
Lawmakers say North Korea has suffered about 4,700 casualties, including injuries and deaths, even as its troops have shown signs of improving combat capability in about six months by using modern weapons such as drones.
They said that in return for sending troops and providing weapons to Russia, Pyongyang appears to have received technical assistance on spy satellites as well as drones and air defense missiles.
“After six months of participating in the war, the North Korean military became less incompetent and its combat capability was greatly improved because it was used to using new weapons, such as drones,” a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee told reporters, who told reporters at the Korea National Intelligence Service.
Pyongyang first confirmed earlier this week that it sent troops to fight Russia in Ukraine’s war for the first time and, under the orders of leader Kim Jong-un, helped restore control of Ukrainian-occupied Russian territory.
North Korea has deployed thousands of troops unprecedentedly, along with a large number of artillery ammunition and missiles, which gives Russia a vital battlefield advantage in the western Kursk region and brings both economically and politically isolated countries closer.
Ukraine released a short video that said two North Korean soldiers were questioned in Kiev after prisoners of war in Kursk, Russia.
Councilman Lee added that the bodies of the dead North Korean soldiers were cremated in Kursk and then transported home.
Pyongyang is also believed to have sent about 15,000 workers to Russia, lawmakers said.
North Korean labor is known overseas as the regime’s source of hard currency income, but UN sanctions prohibit the use of North Korean labor in third countries.
