North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, observes troops firing their rifles at an undisclosed military base in North Korea, March 6, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s western border with Ukraine are conducting “human wave tactics” on the battlefield, leading to more than 1,000 casualties within their ranks last week, a White House spokesman said recently.
North Korean troops supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are conducting ground assaults in the Kursk region against Ukrainian forces that have led to “heavy casualties,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday during a news conference in Washington, D.C.
“It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses,” he said. “These North Korean soldiers appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile.”
The White House had received reports that North Korean troops were killing themselves, instead of surrendering, Kirby said, “likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured.”
North Korean troops have suffered “many losses” and Moscow and Pyongyang “have no interest in the survival of these Koreans at all,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address Friday.
“Everything is arranged in a way that makes it impossible for us to capture the Koreans as prisoners,” Zelenskyy said. Those who were captured were “seriously wounded and could not be resuscitated,” he said.
Militaries and intelligence agencies in Ukraine, the United States and South Korea have estimated around 10,000-12,000 North Korean troops have deployed to Russia since October.
Since 2022, Pyongyang has shipped artillery shells and ballistic missiles to Russia in its fight against Ukraine, according to South Korea’s military. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June pledged mutual military aid if either of their countries were at war.
President Joe Biden on Monday announced the U.S. would send nearly $2.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. This package includes medium-range surface-to-air missiles, artillery shells, small arms, grenades, communications equipment and clothing, according to a Defense Department news release that day.
“At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office,” Biden said in a White House statement Monday.
The security package is in addition to the $3.5 billion sent Monday to Ukraine by the Treasury Department, State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The funds are meant to directly support Ukraine’s budget, including the salaries of government employees, teachers and healthcare workers.
“Ukraine’s success is in America’s core national interest,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a department news release Monday. “Stopping Russia’s illegal invasion will help uphold a global democratic, rules-based, order that advances American security and economic interests, and it will send an unmistakable message to autocrats and would-be aggressors around the world that they will face unshakeable resolve.”
Congress has approved over $180 billion in funds and military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022, according to a September report from the U.S. Ukraine Oversight Interagency Working Group, a group of 24 federal agencies tasked with overseeing assistance to Kyiv.
