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(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russian and North Korean forces suffered heavy losses in the battle in southern Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukrainian and Western sources say up to 11,000 North Korean troops have been sent to the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces are taking a major position after launching a major border offensive in August.
In his late-night video speech, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the fighting took place near the village of Makhnovka, which is close to the Ukrainian border.
“In the battles of yesterday and today near only one village, Makhnovka, in the Kursk region, the Russian army lost an army of North Korean infantry and Russian paratroops,” Zelenskiy said. “This is important.”
The president did not provide specifics. An army can vary in size but generally consists of several hundred soldiers.
Reuters could not independently verify the president’s account.
Zelenskiy last week reported heavy North Korean losses in the Kursk area, saying their forces were not protected by the Russian forces they are fighting.
He said the people of North Korea were taking extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and in some cases they were being killed by their forces.
In his latest remarks, Zelenskiy also said that “critical battles” had been fought along the 1,000-km (620-mile) front line, with the most difficult situation near and the city of Pokrovsk.
He said, Russian forces “continue to use a large number of their personnel in attacks”.
A Ukrainian military spokesman earlier said that Pokrovsk remained the “hot spot”, as Russian forces launched new offensives near the town with the aim of bypassing it to the south and cutting off supply routes. to the Ukrainian forces.
The town, home to a mine that is the sole supplier of Ukraine’s largest steel industry, had a population of about 60,000 before the war. Ukraine estimates that about 11,000 of them are still in the city.
