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(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russian and North Korean troops had suffered heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have held large swaths of territory since a cross-border incursion in August.
In his evening video address, Zelensky cited a report by Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Sirsky, who said the fighting took place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border.
“Yesterday and today, in battles near a village called Makhnovka in the Kursk region, the Russian army lost up to one battalion of North Korean infantry and Russian paratroopers,” Zelensky said. “This is important.”
The president did not give any specific details. A battalion can vary in size but is generally composed of several hundred soldiers.
Reuters could not independently verify the president’s account.
Zelensky said last week that North Korea had suffered heavy losses in the Kursk region, and that its forces were not being protected by Russian forces fighting alongside them.
He said North Koreans are taking extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and are sometimes being killed by their own forces.
In a recent comment, Zelensky said that the most difficult situation near the city of Pokrovsk was “heavily fought” along the entire 1,000 km (620 mi) front line.
Russian forces “continue to devote large numbers of their personnel to the offensive,” he said.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said earlier that Pokrovsk remained the “hottest” frontline, with Russian troops launching new offensives near the city in an effort to bypass the south and cut off routes to Ukrainian troops.
Once the sole supplier of coal to Ukraine’s massive steel industry, the town had a population of about 60,000 before the war. Ukraine estimates about 11,000 remain in the city.
