North Korean casualties in Storm Shadow strike on Kursk, says Kyiv

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A North Korean general was injured and several officers sent by Pyongyang to Russia’s Kursk region were killed last week when Ukraine launched British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at a Russian command centre, according to a Ukrainian official.

The official said the strike, which hit the town of Marino, was one of “several” that have targeted the North Koreans in Kursk region over the past week, also using other weapons. Ukrainian forces were actively searching for more positions where the North Koreans were present, noting that they had been spread out, he added.

The identity of the general was not disclosed. Ukrainian intelligence said that North Korea had sent Colonel General Kim Jong Bok to oversee the “Storm Corps” special forces units deployed in Russia. It is unclear whether he was in Marino during the attack.

The Wall Street Journal, citing western officials, first reported that a North Korean general had been injured.

US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last month that the North Korean troops who enter the fray would be “fair game and fair targets” for Ukrainian forces.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), citing information from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service and echoing Ukrainian intelligence officials interviewed by the Financial Times, said last week that the North Korean troops were likely training alongside Russian naval infantry and airborne units “in preparation for combat in Kursk” region.

Deep State, a Ukrainian war tracking group closely tied to the defence ministry, shows all three brigades located in Kursk region and part of the its eponymous regional capital.

After capturing some 1,100 sq km of Russian territory in August, Ukraine currently controls just over half of that, according to military officials and Deep State’s calculations.

Thousands of North Korean soldiers have now been deployed from staging grounds to Russia’s second line, freeing up more of Moscow’s own 50,000-strong force for combat with the Ukrainian troops, according to senior officials in Kyiv. 

The fighting in Kursk and along Ukraine’s south-eastern front in the Donetsk region has sharply escalated in recent weeks, as the warring sides look to strengthen their positions and seize the initiative on the battlefield before Donald Trump takes office in the US in January. The president-elect has vowed to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year war, sparking fears among Kyiv’s allies that he would force Ukraine to accept Moscow’s terms.

The Storm Shadows strike came a day after Ukraine launched its first US-made Atacms missiles to hit a weapons arsenal near the town of Karachev in Russia’s Bryansk region, north-west of the Kursk battlefield.

Ukrainian officials have said they first fired on North Korean troops in Kursk on November 4, soon after their deployment to the Russian region.

Ukraine’s chief of the General Staff Anatoliy Bargylevych said on Monday that the North Korean troops have since participated in several battles against Kyiv’s forces in Kursk.

Senior officials in Kyiv later clarified that Pyongyang’s troops have so far only played supporting roles along Russia’s second line of positions and had not been involved in direct combat with the Ukrainian infantry.

More than 11,000 North Korean soldiers are currently in the Kursk region, they said, adding that the Russian commanders are still “training them in modern warfare” and have not rushed to deploy them to the frontline. “They are being prepared as assault units,” said one of the officials. 

Ukrainian intelligence believes that Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, wants his soldiers to get “real combat experience”, said the senior official, even at the risk of losing “30 to 40 per cent of them in combat”. “But 60 per cent of them will return home with this experience.”

For Kim, the official added, that real-world, 21st-century fighting experience “is more valuable than receiving weapons from Russia”.

Pyongyang is receiving military technology to help with its missile programmes, as well as financial aid in exchange for its assistance to Moscow, according to the senior Ukrainian officials and assessments from western and South Korean intelligence agencies.

In addition to deploying troops, North Korea has provided Russia with weapons and ammunition. Pyongyang has recently delivered 62 domestically-produced 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 62 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems to Russia, according to Ukrainian intelligence shared with the FT. This is up from 50 and 20, respectively, two weeks ago, when the FT first reported the delivery. 

Some of those weapons systems are now in the Kursk region while the rest have been sent to other depots for eventual use against Ukraine, according to Kyiv.

Those weapons follow North Korean deliveries of more than 100 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles and upwards of 9mn artillery shells, according to Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence estimates.