- North Korean forces are being sent forward in “human waves” against Ukraine, the White House said.
- A spokesperson said the tactic has resulted in heavy casualties, with more than 1,000 killed or wounded in the past week.
- The North Korean troops are treated as expendable and sent on “hopeless” assaults, they said.
North Korean forces are suffering heavy casualties as they carry out “human wave” attacks against Ukrainian troops, a White House spokesperson has said.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US now assesses North Korean soldiers are carrying out “massed, dismounted assaults” against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region.
“And these human wave tactics that we’re seeing haven’t really been all that effective,” Kirby said. “We assess that they’ve resulted in heavy casualties for these North Korean forces.”
“Our estimate is that, to date, they have suffered more than 1,000 killed or wounded in this particular fighting in just the past week of them fighting on the front lines.”
Kirby said it was “clear” that Russian and North Korean military leaders saw the troops as “expendable” and were “ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses.”
He added that the soldiers “appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile.”
North Korean troops first arrived in Russia in October. Ukraine said in November that it had for the first time attacked North Korean forces in Kursk, where Ukraine advanced into in August as part of its fightback against Russia’s invasion.
Pyongyang’s losses have since mounted, according to South Korean and Western intelligence.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that preliminary estimates suggested that over 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Kursk.
North Korea’s military is one of the biggest in the world, but it has little battle experience. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reportedly said that some of Pyongyang’s troops are ill-prepared for drone attacks and the terrain in Kursk.
Ukrainian officials and soldiers have said some North Korean troops have been killed by drones that they did not realize were dangerous, while Ukrainian intelligence said others accidentally killed eight Russian soldiers in Kursk in a “friendly fire” incident caused by a language barrier.
Warfare experts told Business Insider that North Korean troops appeared to be suffering high casualties as they were not given much training but that the troops could learn to adapt to the battlefield.
The NIS warned that North Korea nevertheless appeared to be preparing to put more troops in Russia, The New York Times reported.
Kirby also said on Friday that the US has reports “of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured.”
The alleged treatment of North Korean soldiers is not dissimilar to how Moscow has treated some of its own forces — Russian troops have also frequently attempted to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with “meat wave” attacks.
Moving forward, Kirby said the US would remain “absolutely committed” to bolstering Ukrainian air defenses, citing Russia’s Christmas attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“No doubt this was all about weaponizing winter and weaponizing energy, making it harder for the Ukrainian people to get the heat that they need simply to subsist,” Kirby said.
He added that the US would soon have another security assistance package for Ukraine, including air defense systems and gear “to help them in fighting in and around Kursk to beat back these North Korean waves, as well as continue their defensive operations against the Russians in the east.”
It comes at a crucial moment for Kyiv as it gears up for the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
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