More Than 7,000 North Korean Soldiers Reportedly Died in Kursk, Kyiv Says

A revelation from Ukrainian military intelligence

Ukrainian military intelligence, known by its acronym HUR, claims that more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region, a figure markedly higher than the previous estimate of roughly 6,000 casualties put forward by South Korean and British sources (Kyiv Independent).

My name is Maxime Marquette, and I have to state an essential limitation right away: the Kyiv Independent itself acknowledges that it could not independently verify these figures, a crucial nuance I refuse to pass over, even though the story itself remains gripping and revealing.

Why this claim deserves attention despite the uncertainty

Even without full independent confirmation, this claim from HUR deserves attention because it fits within a documented, verifiable context: the presence of North Korean troops on Russian soil, as part of Pyongyang's support for Vladimir Putin's war effort, is a fact widely corroborated by several Western intelligence services since late 2024.

Pyongyang, for its part, has made no official comment on these alleged losses, a silence that, on its own, constitutes neither confirmation nor denial, but fits squarely within the North Korean regime's well-established tradition of never disclosing its military losses, wherever they occur.

A bold operation launched in August 2024

To understand why North Korean troops ended up fighting in the Kursk region, we have to go back to the Ukrainian incursion launched in August 2024, a bold operation that saw Kyiv's forces push into Russian territory, a first since the start of the full-scale invasion of 2022, forcing Moscow to respond with considerable resources.

This incursion, which continued until March 2025, represented a strategic and symbolic shock for the Kremlin, forcing Russia to pull troops from other sectors of the front and to call on its North Korean ally for help retaking the lost territory.

The Ukrainian withdrawal and the operation's outcome

After several months of intense fighting, Ukrainian forces eventually withdrew from most of the Kursk territory they had initially occupied, but the operation had already achieved its main strategic objectives: exposing the vulnerability of Russian territory and forcing a costly redeployment of the Kremlin's military resources.

It is precisely within this context of Russian forces, backed by their North Korean allies, retaking the Kursk territory that the massive losses now cited by Ukrainian intelligence would have occurred, over a period of several months of particularly intense fighting.

A partnership sealed by a formal treaty

The presence of North Korean troops in Russia falls under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty signed between Russia and North Korea in October 2024, a treaty that formalizes deep military and political cooperation between the two regimes, potentially including a mutual-assistance clause in the event of conflict.

This treaty marks a significant milestone in relations between Moscow and Pyongyang, going far beyond simple economic or diplomatic cooperation into the much more sensitive territory of direct military engagement in an active conflict on European soil.

Troop numbers that keep growing

According to the South Korean news agency Yonhap, roughly 11,000 North Korean soldiers are now believed to be deployed in support of the Russian war effort as of early 2026, a figure suggesting that Pyongyang continues sending reinforcements despite the already considerable losses its troops have suffered since their initial deployment.

This persistence of North Korean involvement, despite proportionally very high losses according to Ukrainian estimates, reflects the strategic importance Kim Jong Un's regime places on this alliance with Russia, likely in exchange for military technology and crucial economic support.

An essential supplier of artillery ammunition

Beyond sending troops, North Korea plays an essential logistical role in the Russian war effort by supplying massive quantities of 122-millimeter and 152-millimeter artillery shells, ammunition crucial to sustaining the intensity of Russian bombardments along the entire Ukrainian front.

This material contribution, less visible in the media than sending troops into combat, could actually have an even more decisive impact on Russia's ability to sustain its war effort, given the massive consumption of artillery ammunition in this high-intensity conflict.

The supply of ballistic missiles

Several Western intelligence services have also documented Pyongyang's supply of ballistic missiles to Russia, weapons that have been used in strikes against Ukrainian targets, demonstrating the growing scale and sophistication of this military cooperation between the two authoritarian regimes.

This combination of troops, ammunition, and missiles makes North Korea a now-indispensable actor in Russia's ability to continue its aggression against Ukraine, a reality that should, in my view, carry more weight in Western discussions on sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

Why these figures remain hard to confirm

It is essential to remember that these casualty figures, however precise they may appear, come exclusively from Ukrainian military intelligence, a source that obviously has a strategic and communications interest in emphasizing the scale of losses inflicted on enemy forces, including their North Korean allies.

The Kyiv Independent, in its own coverage of this story, explicitly noted its inability to independently verify these figures, a piece of journalistic transparency I want to highlight and respect in my own analysis of this situation.

Pyongyang's deafening silence

The total silence from Pyongyang on this issue, while it constitutes neither confirmation nor denial of the figures put forward, fits a well-established pattern: the North Korean regime has never officially acknowledged the scale of its military involvement in Russia, preferring to maintain strategic ambiguity on this sensitive question.

This total lack of transparency from Pyongyang makes any complete independent verification all the more difficult, leaving researchers and journalists dependent on estimates provided by the intelligence services of the countries involved in this conflict, each with its own strategic interests.

A war of attrition with considerable human costs

Whether the exact figure is 6,000 or 7,000 losses, the sheer scale of these estimates reflects the extreme intensity of the fighting in the Kursk region, confirming once again the war-of-attrition nature this conflict has taken on for several years now, with considerable human costs for every party involved, including Russia's allies.

This reality directly contradicts the sometimes complacent narratives that present North Korean aid to Russia as a simple, low-cost diplomatic gesture, when it in fact represents a considerable human sacrifice for a regime that has strictly no direct stake in this European conflict.

Implications for the rest of the conflict

According to a recent analysis by Al Jazeera, the Russian advance is reportedly showing signs of running out of steam on several segments of the front, a situation fueling growing anxiety in Moscow over Russia's ability to sustain its war effort without ever-larger outside support, notably from North Korea and Iran.

If North Korean losses continue piling up at this rate, it is not out of the question that Pyongyang will begin reconsidering the scale of its future involvement, a factor that could, over time, further weaken Russia's capacity to sustain its aggression against Ukraine in the long run.

Sanctions still deemed insufficient

Despite increasingly solid documentation of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, several Western analysts believe the sanctions currently imposed on North Korea remain largely insufficient to deter continued military support for Russia, notably because of persistent gaps in the enforcement of existing sanctions regimes.

This inadequacy of sanctions is partly explained by the difficulty of effectively monitoring transfers of military equipment and troops between two regimes that operate with a high degree of secrecy and largely evade the usual international verification mechanisms.

China's role in this equation

China, while not directly involved in sending troops, plays an ambiguous role in this dynamic by continuing to maintain substantial economic ties with both North Korea and Russia, without exerting the diplomatic pressure Beijing could theoretically apply to limit this military escalation.

This ambiguous position from Beijing confirms, in my view, that China remains a key player in sustaining this authoritarian axis, even as it prefers to avoid direct, visible involvement in the Ukrainian conflict itself.

The real scale of the losses, a persistent unknown

Despite every estimate put forward by different intelligence sources, the real scale of North Korean losses in Kursk remains an unknown that only independent verification, currently impossible in the context of this war, could confirm with certainty, leaving observers dependent on the sometimes contradictory estimates of the intelligence services involved.

This persistent uncertainty should not, however, prevent the West from drawing important strategic conclusions about the nature of this Russian-North Korean alliance, even in the absence of precise, fully verified figures.

The uncertain future of North Korean involvement

One question also remains without a clear answer: how long is Pyongyang willing to keep sending troops into a costly foreign conflict, with no guarantee of direct benefit for the North Korean population itself, which remains largely kept in the dark about the real scale of this military involvement.

It is this question, more than any other, that will determine whether the alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang continues to deepen or eventually reaches its limits in the face of the growing human cost it imposes on the North Korean regime.

What can be stated with confidence

What can be stated with reasonable confidence, beyond the precise casualty figure that remains impossible to verify independently, is that the war in Ukraine long ago stopped being a strictly European conflict: it now directly involves North Korean troops, Iranian ammunition, and growing strategic coordination among several authoritarian regimes that share a common interest in weakening the Western-led international order.

This globalized dimension of the conflict should, in my view, push the West to strengthen its own coordination and support for Ukraine, rather than continuing to treat this conflict as a simple regional matter between two neighboring countries with interests confined to the European continent.

The lesson to take from this story

The most important lesson from this story, in my view, is not the exact figure of North Korean losses in Kursk, but rather the striking demonstration that the axis formed by Russia, North Korea, Iran, and, to a lesser extent, China, now represents a coordinated threat that extends well beyond the Ukrainian conflict itself.

It is this broader geopolitical reality, more than any figure of military losses, that I will keep watching closely in my future columns on a conflict that is redefining the world's alliances in our time.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.