North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks with military leaders at the Academy of Defense Sciences in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this image released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on May 28, 2024. (KCNA)

A recent Ukrainian attack wounded a North Korean general, the first senior officer casualty reported among thousands of North Korean troops sent to bolster Russian forces, a report said.

The unidentified general was wounded in an unspecified attack in the Kursk region, according to unnamed Western officials cited by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

North Korean troops deployed to that area are a “fair target” and the U.S. Defense Department “absolutely” expects them to be engaged in the fight, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Thursday at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

South Korean officials had not commented on the Journal report as of Friday evening. The country’s Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment by phone that day.

The potential sacrifice of one general amounts to little in the grand scheme of the two-year war in Ukraine, said former North Korean soldier Kim Seongmin, chief executive of Free North Korea Radio, a broadcast station ran by North Korean defectors.

Kim said he served as a captain in the North Korean army between 1988 and 1995.

“Pyongyang put its head into the lion’s mouth for money and the safety of the [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un regime,” he said by phone Friday. “How could infantrymen survive in such a battlefield? It will not end with just a general.”

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency has yet to confirm it has deployed troops for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The country’s Foreign Ministry in a statement last month said it reserved the right to deploy them to support Russia.

South Korean lawmakers briefed by intelligence officials Oct. 29 said they received reports that Col. Gen. Kim Yong Bok, deputy chief of the General Staff of the North Korean army, was among the troops sent to Russia, according to a Yonhap News report that day.

At a June summit in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged mutual military aid if either of their countries were at war.

Last month, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said that over 10,000 North Korean troops were deployed to Russia’s western border. The Pentagon earlier this month estimated between 11,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops are in Russia.

The North Koreans “will provide some type of combat or combat support capability,” Defense Department spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a news conference Nov. 4.

“Should those troops engage in combat support operations against Ukraine, they would become legitimate military targets,” he said.