The White House has said Moscow is treating its North Korean partner forces as "expendable" in its war against Ukraine, and following South Korean and Pentagon intelligence assessments which say North Korea has suffered at least 1,100 casualties so far
National Security communications adviser John Kirby said in a Friday press briefing, "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."
"These North Korean soldiers appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile," he added.
Kirby said there have been reports of North Korean troops committing suicide due to the battlefield conditions and hopelessness of the situation. He presented this as anecdotal and tangential evidence pointing to massive losses, but the assertion could very well be wartime propaganda.
"We also have reports of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces, likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured," Kirby asserted.
On Friday Kiev forces claimed to have actually captured North Korean troops on the battlefield. These foreign troops are believed mainly deployed in Russia's Kursk region, to assist Moscow in regaining its lost territory.
"Today we received reports on several soldiers from North Korea, our warriors managed to capture them. But they were seriously wounded and could not be resuscitated," Zelensky had said in an address.
"This is one of the manifestations of the madness dictatorships are capable of," he continued. "The Korean nation should not lose its people in the battles in Europe."
Zelensky also called on China to exert pressure on Kim Jong-Un to abandon the deployment in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Beijing, however, has remained mum on the issue.
Kirby in his briefing had also vouched for recent South Korean intelligence figures: "Our estimate is that, to date, they have suffered more than 1,000 killed or wounded in this particular fighting in just the past week of them fighting on the front lines," he said.
