North Koreans suffering battlefield losses, unprotected by Russian forces: Ukraine's Zelenskyy

North Korean troops deployed in Russia's Kursk region are suffering heavy losses and being left unprotected by the Russian forces they are fighting alongside, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday (Dec 27).

Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, said Russian troops were sending the North Koreans into battle with minimal protection and that North Koreans were taking extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner.

"Their losses are significant, very significant. We see that neither the Russian military nor their North Korean overseers have any interest in ensuring the survival of these North Koreans," he said.

"Everything is set up so that it is impossible for us to capture them. There are instances in which they are executed by their own forces. Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection."

Ukrainian and Western intelligence reports say there are about 12,000 North Korean troops in Kursk, a Russian region on the border where Ukrainian forces are holding chunks of territory after staging an incursion in August.

Earlier this week, Zelenskyy said more than 3,000 North Koreans had been killed or wounded.

He said Ukrainian forces had managed to take a few North Korean soldiers as prisoners "but they were severely wounded and it was not possible to save their lives".

Zelenskyy said the Korean people "should not be losing their lives in battles in Europe".

"This is something that Korea's neighbours, including China, can influence," he added.

"If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not expand, it needs to exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang." 

White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday that North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of Russia's war against Ukraine, with 1,000 troops killed or wounded in the last week alone in Kursk.

The number far exceeds the figure US officials have previously provided.

"It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defences," Kirby said, describing the North Korean troops' offensive as "massed, dismounted assaults".

North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Russia's UN mission declined to comment.

In his comments, Kirby said outgoing US President Joe Biden would likely approve another security assistance package for Ukraine in the coming days.