South Korean lawmakers will provide updates on the presumed victims after the briefing by the country’s intelligence reporting agency.
Around 600 North Korean soldiers were killed in the Russian war in Ukraine, a South Korean lawmaker said, citing an intelligence report source.
After a closed door briefing by the National Intelligence Agency (NIS) on Wednesday, Lee Sung Kwen and Kim Byung Kee told reporters that an estimated 4,700 North Koreans have been killed or injured in the war so far.
Lee and Kim, co-chairs of the parliamentary intelligence news committee, commented two days after the first confirmation that Pyongyang had sent troops to Russia to support the war in Moscow.
In an official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report on Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong said he ordered the deployment of troops to “annihilate and wipe out Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupations and work with Russian troops to liberate the Kursk region.”
The latest victim figures show a big jump from the NIS briefing to lawmakers in January. The spy agency reportedly killed around 300 North Korean troops in the conflict.
Reporters briefings Lee and Kim are members of the conservative power parties and liberal Democrats, respectively, and the NIS estimates that Pyongyang has deployed a total of around 15,000 soldiers.
The lawmaker also said Pyongyang appears to receive technical assistance with spy satellites in exchange for its assistance, drones, electronic tanks and SA-22 ground aerial missiles.
“After six months of participation in the war, the North Korean forces have become incompetent and their combat capabilities have been greatly improved as they are used to using new weapons such as drones,” Lee told reporters.
Source link
