kyiv thinks that the North Korean soldiers were “withdrawn” from the front to Koursk

Ukraine estimates that the North Korean soldiers, deployed in the Russian region of Koursk “Have been removed”due to the heavy losses that the Ukrainian army inflicted on them, a military spokesman told AFP on Friday.

Seoul, kyiv and Washington claim that North Korea had deployed, since last October, some 11,000 soldiers in this border region of Ukraine to help Moscow resume territory under Ukrainian control since a surprise offensive in August.

“For the past three weeks, we have not seen or detected armed activity or confrontation with North Koreans”said Colonel Oleksandre Kindratenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian special forces.

Therefore “We think they were withdrawn due to the heavy losses they have suffered”he said, questioned by AFP on information in this sense of the American daily New York Times, which was based on unidentified American and Ukrainian sources.

The newspaper said on Thursday that North Korean soldiers had not been seen on the front for two weeks.

Oleksandre Kindratenko did not want to estimate the North Korean losses. He also judged that these forces retired to “Return and to be used in another way”.

Moscow and Pyongyang have neither admitted nor denied the presence of these troops on the battlefields of the Koursk region.

The involvement of a regular regular army was a major escalation in the invasion of Ukraine launched almost three years ago by Vladimir Putin.

An advisor to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, had already said on Wednesday on X that “Some North Korean units” had been removed from the front in the Koursk region.

All these sources explain this withdrawal by the heavy losses that these units would have suffered in the fighting to take up the Ukrainians the few hundred km2 of Russian territory which they control and that Vladimir Putin has sworn to resume.

Questioned by AFP on New York Times’ claims at a briefing in Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov refused to comment.

“There are (in the American daily newspaper) many different things, just, false, false, distortions of reality, that’s why it is probably not appropriate to () comment each time. We will not (therefore) not ”he insisted.

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A South Korean deputy said in January that some 300 North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia had been killed and 2,700 others injured, citing Seoul’s intelligence service.

In December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told him that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “Killed or injured” On site, while Seoul had advanced the figure of 1,000.

He also announced in January the capture of two North Korean soldiers, interviewed in kyiv. South Korean intelligence then confirmed it.

The Ukrainian announcement on Friday occurs at a time when the prospect of negotiations between Moscow and kyiv is more and more often mentioned.

Ukraine, Russia and their respective allies have their eyes turned to the White House, the return of Donald Trump being perceived as a rotating potential in the war.

His position is ambiguous: criticism of the sums spent by the United States to help Ukraine, he also adopted a severe tone with Moscow, which he has threatened with additional sanctions in recent weeks.

In any case, he wants a rapid end to war, and through negotiations.

Ukraine is afraid of arriving in a weak position at the negotiating table.

The Russian army multiplies advances in the east of the country, and kyiv’s forces are powerless to slow them down.

Russian forces claimed to conquer a new village in eastern Ukraine, near the locality of Pokrovsk on Friday, and also approach a road that could open the way to places Strong Ukrainians in the East as well as to the Dnipropetrovsk region, in the center of the country.

Control of Russian territories in the Koursk region could have an advantage for kyiv and an exchange currency in the event of talks with Moscow.