North Korean losses exceed 6,000 in the Russian Kursk Oblast, British intelligence reports

North Korea gave more than 6,000 victims during offensive operations in the Kursk Oblast in Russia, according to a June 15 report in the United Kingdom’s United Kingdom.

According to the report, the losses of North Korea represent more than half of the approximately 11,000 soldiers initially deployed in Kursk in the fall of 2024.

British intelligence has awarded the high victims’ rate to highly attritional demonstration.

Open source intelligence reports have also suggested that a small number of additional North Korea troops have been deployed to compensate for losses.

Earlier this year, the chiefs of South Korea joint Staff said that North Korea had transferred around 3,000 additional soldiers to Russia in January and February.

North Korea has become a key military ally of Russia thanks to its invasion of Ukraine, providing Moscow with artillery, missiles and even soldiers in exchange for petroleum products and advanced military technologies, such as improvements in ballistic missiles.

In April 2025, Russia confirmed for the first time that the North Korean forces were fighting alongside the Russian troops in Kursk, although the North Korean troops were involved since the fall of 2024.

Ukraine launched a cross -border foray into the Kursk Oblast in August 2024, marking the first large -scale invasion of Russian territory by foreign forces since the Second World War. The operation was aimed at disrupting a Russian offensive planned for the neighboring oblast of Sumy and keeping the Russian forces from the Donbas region besieged.

Russia launched a push to resume the region in early March 2025, Ukraine being forced to withdraw from a large part of the territory initially taken.