The friendly fire was a result of a language barrier, Ukraine says
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Russian paramilitary soldiers were accidentally targeted and killed by North Korean troops in a recent bout of friendly fire, according to Ukrainian officials.
In a statement published on Saturday, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) detailed how Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) soldiers have recently assisted Russian troops in the Kursk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian officials estimate that around 11,000 DPRK personnel are stationed in Russia.
"The aggressor state of Russia has begun to use DPRK soldiers in assault operations in the Kursk region, in particular, as part of the combined units of the marines and airborne troops of the Russian Armed Forces," the statement read.
"The North Korean troops suffer sanitary and irreversible losses as a result of a successful fire attack by the Ukrainian Security and Defense Forces," the DIU added. "In particular, at one of the positions in the Kursk region, the DPRK army was effectively targeted by FPV drones."
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A view of the dragon teeth and the barbed wire built to create a defensive line around Sumy as seen in Sumy, Ukraine on November 6, 2024. (Oksana Parafeniuk for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The DIU noted that, in a recent incident, the language barrier between Russian and North Korean troops ultimately led to the death of eight soldiers in the Akhmat special forces unit, which is a paramilitary group in Chechnya.
"When using the DPRK troops on the battlefield, the language barrier remains problematic to control and coordinate actions," the statement said.
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Russian Minister of Defense, Andrey Belousov (L) meets with his North Korean counterpart No Kwang Chol (R) in Pyongyang, North Korea on November 29, 2024. (RUS Defense Ministry/Vadim Savitsky / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"Because of this problem, North Korean soldiers opened ‘friendly fire’ on the vehicles of the so-called Akhmat battalion," the DIU added. "As a result, they killed eight Kadyrovite soldiers."
This latest development in the Russo-Ukrainian war came as the Russian military continued to pummel Ukraine’s power grid, taking advantage of freezing conditions to devastate the country’s largest energy company.
This photo taken on October 18, 2023, shows North Korean soldiers waving their national flags as they welcome Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after he landed at the airport in Pyongyang. (KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty Images)
In one of the largest-ever mass attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, Russian forces fired nearly 100 missiles, including cruise missiles, and 200 drones across Western Ukraine on Friday, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Fox News Digital's Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
Andrea Margolis is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Readers can send story tips to
