4,000 North Korean troops killed or wounded in Ukraine, Zelensky claims

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin attend a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Jan. 9, 2025. AP-Yonhap

SEOUL, January 10 (AJP) - About 4,000 North Korean soldiers dispatched to Russia to support its war in Ukraine have been "killed and wounded in action," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday.

North Korea holds "no value for [its] people," said Zelensky during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), an alliance of 57 counties, also known as the Ramstein group, which includes members of NATO as well as most of the European Union.

His remarks came just a week after he claimed in an interview with American podcaster Lex Fridman last Sunday that 3,800 out of 12,000 North Korean soldiers who arrived in Russia have been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region, a territory currently occupied by Ukraine.

Raising the possibility of North Korea sending more troops to Moscow, he condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming that he has "even started hiring soldiers from North Korea to continue this war."

Zelensky also vowed to bring an end to the war "with dignity" within this year.

"Moscow has even rushed troops from North Korea into a war that they don't belong in. That's another clear sign of Putin's desperation," said outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who also attended the meeting for the last time. "North Korean forces have suffered more than 1,000 casualties since they enlisted last December in Putin's war. And of course there are other estimates that are far north of that."

Estimates of North Korean casualties in Ukraine have varied, with some reports indicating far higher figures than others.