Zelensky reports heavy losses for Russian and North Korean troops in Kursk, Russia
(Reuters) – Russian and North Korean troops have suffered heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have seized large swathes of territory after launching a massive cross-border incursion in August.
In a nighttime video speech, Zelensky cited a report from Ukraine’s top commander Alexander Silsky that the fighting took place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border.
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“Yesterday and today, in battles near the village of Makhnovka in the Kursk region, Russian troops lost to a battalion of North Korean infantry and Russian paratroopers,” Zelensky said. “This is important.”
The president did not provide specific details. A battalion may vary in size, but usually consists of several hundred soldiers.
Reuters could not independently verify the president’s account.
Zelensky last week reported heavy losses to North Korea in the Kursk region, saying their troops were not protected by Russian troops fighting alongside them.
He said North Koreans were taking extreme measures to avoid being captured and, in some cases, executed by their own troops.
Zelensky also said in his latest speech that “fierce fighting” was taking place along the entire 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front, with the situation near the city of Pokrovsk being the most difficult.
He said Russian forces “continue to commit large numbers of personnel” to attacks.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said earlier that Pokrovsk remained the “most popular” frontline area and that Russian troops launched new attacks near the town in an attempt to bypass the town from the south and cut off the Ukrainian army’s supply routes.
A coal mine in the city, which had a pre-war population of about 60,000, was the sole supplier of coking coal to Ukraine’s once-large steel industry. An estimated 11,000 Ukrainians remain in the city.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Sandra Maler)
