North Korean troops are suffering heavy losses during fighting in Russia’s Kursk region and facing logistical difficulties as a result of Ukrainian attacks, Ukraine’s military intelligence said Thursday.
The intelligence agency, known under its acronym GUR, said Ukrainian strikes near Novoivanovka inflicted heavy casualties on North Korean units.
It said North Korean troops also faced supply issues and even shortages of drinking water.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week that 3,000 North Korean troops have been killed and wounded in the fighting in the Kursk region.
It marked the first significant estimate by Ukraine of North Korean casualties several weeks after Kyiv announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported early on Friday that the country’s spy agency said an injured North Korean soldier had been captured alive.
The agency appeared to confirmed earlier reports that a North Korean soldier dispatched to fight for Russia had been captured by Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into the Kursk region in August, dealing a significant blow to Russia’s prestige and forcing it to deploy some of its troops from eastern Ukraine, where they were pressing a slow-moving offensive.
The Russian army has been able to reclaim some territory in the Kursk region, but has failed to fully dislodge Ukrainian troops.
Russia steps up attacks in Ukraine
At the same time, Russia has sought to break Ukraine’s resistance with waves of cruise missiles and drone strikes against Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure.
The latest attack on Christmas morning involved 78 missiles and 106 drones striking power facilities, Ukraine’s air force said. It claimed to have intercepted 59 missiles and 54 drones and jammed 52 other drones.
On Thursday, Russia attacked Ukraine with 31 exploding drones. Twenty were shot down and another 11 didn’t reach their target due to jamming, the Ukrainian air force said.
Russia launched a massive missile and drone barrage targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Wednesday, striking a thermal power plant and prompting Ukrainians to take shelter in metro stations on Christmas morning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than 70 missiles and 100 attack drones were used to strike Ukraine’s power sources, in a statement on X.
As part of the daily barrage, Russian forces also struck a central market in Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region with a drone, wounding eight people, according to local authorities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Thursday that Russia could again hit Ukraine with the new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile that was first used in a Nov. 21 strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Speaking to reporters, Putin said Russia has just a few Oreshnik missiles, but added that it wouldn’t hesitate to use them on Ukraine.
“We aren’t in a rush to use them, because those are powerful weapons intended for certain tasks,” he said. “But we wouldn’t exclude their use today or tomorrow if necessary.”
Putin said Russia has launched serial production of the new weapon and reaffirmed a plan to deploy some Oreshnik missiles to Russia’s neighbour and ally Belarus, where authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters Thursday that his country could host 10 or more.
Vladimir Putin says his forces will regain full control of the western Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched an offensive last summer. But the Russian president, who held an annual press briefing in Moscow on Thursday, would not provide a specific date.
Ukraine hit back with drone strikes of its own. Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications said the military struck a plant in Kamensk-Shakhtynsky in Russia’s southern Rostov region that produces propellant for ballistic missiles.
“This strike is part of a comprehensive campaign to weaken the capabilities of the Russian armed forces to carry out terrorist attacks against Ukrainian civilians,” it said in a statement.
