Kim Jong Un, the leader of the nation, claimed in a statement released on Monday to the ruling Workers’ Party’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that as part of a mutual defense agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang, he had sent troops into battle alongside Russian forces.
According to the KCNA, Kim claimed that soldiers were being deployed to “liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces” and “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers.
According to Kim, “They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the motherland’s honor,” according to KCNA.
North Korea “admires it as an honor to have an alliance with a strong state like the Russian Federation,” according to KCNA.
In June of last year, the two nations formally endorsed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement that would offer each other military support in the event of conflict.
Kim also stated that a monument would soon be constructed in the capital, Pyongyang, to honor those who had fought against Ukraine, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap News Agency.
According to Yonhap, “Flowers praying for immortality will be sprayed on the graves of fallen soldiers to formally acknowledge soldiers who died in combat,” adding that North Korea had so far remained silent about the thousands of soldiers it had sent to Russia in October.
According to Ukrainian officials, about 14, 000 North Koreans were stationed against its forces earlier this year, including 3, 000 reinforcements to replace the North Koreans’ early losses on the battlefield.
The North Koreans, who lacked armored vehicles and were unaccustomed to drone warfare, suffered significant casualties in the initial fighting but quickly recovered, according to reports, and later made a contribution to regaining control of Russia’s Kursk region from Ukrainian forces.
There are a lot of different estimates of the casualty rate for North Korean forces in their engagement with Russia.
About 300 North Korean soldiers were killed in combat, according to the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in South Korea in January, and 2,700 were hurt.
The United States estimated a lower figure of about 1,200 casualties, according to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who listed the number of North Koreans who had died or were seriously injured at 4, 000.
Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top official, praised the “heroism” of the North Korean soldiers on Saturday, while telling Putin that Kursk had been retaken from Ukrainian forces.
The general staff of Ukraine responded quickly, saying that Kursk’s defensive operation was going on.
Source: Aljazeera
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