The Ukrainian military reported that North Korean soldiers serving for Russia were provided with fictitious military documents featuring Russian names and birthplaces.
Russia is attempting to hide the presence of foreign combatants on the battlefield in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s special operations forces said in a statement on Sunday that they had captured the documents of three North Korean soldiers and killed them in the western Kursk area of Russia.
Their military identity credentials, which allude to a Russian province in southern Siberia that borders Mongolia, “lack all the stamps and photos, the patronymic names are given in the Russian manner, and the place of birth is signed as the Republic of Tuva,” the statement read.
However, the documents’ Korean signatures “indicate the real origin of these soldiers,” the letter continued.
The statement said, “This case once again confirms that Russia is using any means to conceal foreign presence and hide its battlefield losses.”
According to intelligence estimates from the US, Ukraine, and South Korea, there are between 11,000 and 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia. Some of these soldiers have already participated in combat operations alongside tens of thousands of Russian troops to help retake areas of Kursk that were taken during an August Ukrainian offensive.
US and Ukrainian authorities said North Korean troops appear to have been severely damaged in the area, while Kyiv officials blame Russia for attempting to hide its role.
According to a top US official, since October, North Korea has suffered “several hundred” fatalities and injuries in Kursk. About 100 North Korean soldiers are thought to have died and nearly 1,000 injured since being sent to Kursk, according to the nation’s intelligence service, a South Korean politician claimed.
On December 17, Ukraine’s special forces reported that 50 North Korean soldiers had been killed and 47 wounded in just three days while battling alongside Russian troops in Kursk.
In an apparent reference to the Korean War, when waves of infantry were employed, one Ukrainian battalion claimed that North Koreans, dressed differently than the Russians, had launched infantry attacks employing “same tactics as 70 years ago.”
Pyongyang or Moscow has formally recognised the existence of North Korean forces in Russia.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia is using drastic measures to hide the identities of North Korean soldiers who have been killed in battle to hide the losses of North Korean forces on the battlefield.
In a statement on X on December 17, Zelensky included a video allegedly showing Russian soldiers burning North Korean soldiers’ bodies and stated, “Russians are trying… to burn the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in battle.”
On December 15, a Ukrainian frontline drone unit shared footage that appeared to show the bodies of over 20 North Korean troops arranged in a field of ice. The video quality was insufficient to confirm their identification.
Before Russia could remove the remains, the Ukrainian unit took the video, according to Lt. Andrii Kovalenko, a member of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council.
“They make every effort to hide the fact that North Koreans are involved in particular operations. As a result, they typically arrange these dead in a row before tracked trucks arrive and remove them,” Kovalenko told Ukrinform, the national news agency of Ukraine.
