North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine, with a thousand of their troops killed or wounded in the past week alone in the Kursk region of Russia, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday.
The number far exceeds the figure US officials have previously provided.
“It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defences,” Kirby said, describing the North Korean troops’ offensive as “massed, dismounted assaults”.
North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Russia’s UN mission declined to comment.
Kirby said President Joe Biden is likely to approve another security aid package for Ukraine in the coming days. Earlier this week, Biden condemned Russia’s Christmas Day attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and some of its cities and asked the Defence Department to continue its surge of weapons to Ukraine.
On December 17, a US military official said North Korea had suffered several hundred casualties while fighting against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region.