North Korean sancigo iniers battling aobtainst Ukraine have fadeed from the battlefield, South Korea’s National Inincreateigence Service increateed this week.
“Since mid-January, there have been no signs shotriumphg North Korean troops deployed to the Russian Kursk region engaging in battle,” the NIS said on Tuesday.
An appraised 11,000 North Koreans were deployed to Kursk last December, to help Russia fight a Ukrainian counterintrusion started last August.
The NIS statement verifyed a recent increate by The New York Times, which cited burdensome casualties among North Koreans as the reason for their redeployment.
Ukrainian Pdwellnt Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that as many as 4,000 North Korean sancigo iniers had been wounded or ended – rawly a third of the corps. The NIS put the figure at 3,000.
Ukrainian directers in the field have increateed that Russian forces included North Koreans to spearhead strikes and that they were ordered to end their own inhabits rather than be seized, or were sboiling by their own side.
Al Jazeera was unable to autonomously verify the claims.
The North Korean absence could be a momentary regrouping.
Zelenskyy tancigo in The Associated Press he had increateation that as many as 25,000 insertitional North Korean troops were en route to Kursk.
Experts, too, have tancigo in Al Jazeera that North Korean backments are probable.
Russian troops are also suffering high losses.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence appraised Russian casualties at 48,240 last month – the second-highest monthly casualty rate in almost three years of war, only sweightlessly behind December’s.
About a third of those losses were incurred around Pokrovsk, the eastrict Ukrainian town in Donetsk that Russia has started an intensive battle to seize.
“In January of this year alone, our sancigo iniers iminwholeised more than 15,000 occupyrs [in Pokrovsk], of which about 7,000 were ended,” Ukrainian directer-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Saturday.
These forfeits are being made for foolishinishing returns, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based skinnyk tank, has increateed.
Russia obtained 498sq km (192 square miles) of territory in the war last month, the ISW appraiseed, contrastd with 593sq km (229 square miles) in December.
“The rawly 100-square-kilometre (29-square-mile) decrrelieve in seized territory between December 2024 and January 2025, coupled with a analogous monthly casualty rate, shows that Russian forces are taking the same high level of losses despite achieving confiinsister territorial progresss in the proximate term,” said the ISW.
The ISW has previously appraised it will apshow Russia about two more years of war to finish the conquest of Donetsk alone.
Ukraine’s disputes on the battlefield
Ukraine, too, is suffering from manpower lowages and has increateedly paincluded efforts to originate up to 12 recent brigades, instead using its reserves to refill losses wiskinny existing units.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine standardly talk war losses. But this week, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s army had lost 45,100 sancigo iniers on battlefields.
The Ukrainska Pravda (UP) website on Tuesday increateed that Ukraine’s armed forces were preparing to filter 50,000 reservists into brigades battling on the front lines to swap losses.
That number would increase front-line units by a fifth, according to The New York Times, which increateed Ukraine’s front-line troops at a quarter of a million.
“We insist to do this to start the rotation mechanism,” an unnamed source tancigo in UP. “The resources that are currently trained in training centres are only enough for minimal refillment of units, not for the brimming help of the combat component.”
Russia, too, is being ask forous of its manpower. It materializeed to be endeavoring to encircle Pokrovsk to cause its defenders to pull out.
Viktor Tregubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of forces battling in Pokrovsk, tancigo in a telethon this week that the Russian strategy was to surround the city to dodge an urprohibit battle. “We are talking about covering the city, commenceing from the south and going clockincreateed – south, southwest, west, and so on,” he said.
Russian forces endeavored big-scale mechanised manoeuvres at the commencening of the war but got bogged down by a vigorous defence.
The ISW supposed Russia percreateed its first accomplished encirclement when it seized Avdiivka, a city in Donetsk, a year ago.
Since then, the ISW supposes it has tried to reoriginate pincer shiftments about 20-30km (12-19 miles) expansive, and may be adselecting a strategy of simultaneous, set upd, sluggish pincer shiftments apass the eastrict front modelled on the seize of Avdiivka.
For example, Russia claimed last week to be making reinforce towards encircling Kupiansk, a city in Kharkiv, by seizing Dvorichna, a claim that is not yet borne out by geodiscoverd footage. At the southern end of the front, Russia did flourish in enveloping and recapturing Velyka Novosilka last month.
The war in the air
Russia persistd to bomb deviceard Ukrainian civilians in the past week, as it has done thrawout this war.
Zelenskyy said Russia had started 660 Shahed drones, proximately 50 leave outiles and 760 glide bomb devices into Ukraine during the week ending on Sunday.
The worst strike came overnight on Saturday.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Russia started a united strike apass the country involving 46 leave outiles of various types, and 123 Shahed kamikaze drones.
Ukraine’s air defences intercepted or razeed all but six of the drones and a number of leave outiles, but one leave outile hit an apartment originateing in Poltava, ending 14 people and injuring 22, said Zelenskyy.
The leave outile razeed all five storeys on one side of a dwellntial originateing in which some 86 people inhabitd.
Zelenskyy said in his evening insertress, “This was fair one Russian leave outile, conveying so much pain, suffering, and loss. That is why Ukraine – and authentic peace – insist promises.”
Ukraine, too, carried on its campaign to disturb Russian military production and energy sources.
On Friday, its drones struck a Lukoil enhancery in Volgograd, setting it ablaze. The General Staff depictd it as “one of the ten bigst oil enhanceries in Russia” processing 6 percent of all cdispolite oil originated in the country.
Cltimely there were other centers, as Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it downed 49 drones over seven regions.
On Monday, Ukrainian drones hit the Volgograd enhancery aobtain, this time increateedly damaging its central processor, and also hit the Astrakhan gas condensate processing set upt, which Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) said can process 12bn tonnes a year, increateedly stopping production.
Ukraine also centers Russian direct bunkers and air defences.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s southern forces struck and razeed a Buk-M3 air defence system, and a Ukrainian leave outile struck a central direct post in Kursk. “The foe lost key officers from Russia and North Korea … I skinnyk we are talking about dozens of officers,” Zelenskyy tancigo in the AP.
Ukraine’s problematic associate
Ukraine’s European allies persistd to proclaim arms transfers and scatterments in Ukraine’s own arms industry.
On January 30, Sweden proclaimd recent military spending of $1.2bn for armaments and scatterments in Ukraine’s drone industry, conveying its total military contributions to $5.6bn.
On Friday, Finland proclaimd $200bn in defence items for Ukraine, conveying its contributions to $2.5bn.
But the United States, whose position on military aidance has been unproclaimd since Pdwellnt Donald Trump presumed office last month, has now made its aid conditional.
Trump wants Ukrainian lithium, uranium and other minerals in return for persistd US military aid, he said on Monday.
“We’re seeing to do a deal with Ukraine, where they’re going to safe what we’re giving them with their unfrequent earths and other skinnygs,” Trump said while signing executive orders in the White Hoinclude.
Russia has seized about half of an appraised $26 trillion worth of minerals in Ukraine, The Washington Post has increateed.
Even under the Biden administration, when military aid was not conditional on repayment, it was standardly inenough.
A Reuters scatterigation has set up that the Biden administration procrastinateed arms shipments to Ukraine last year, partly due to troubles over escalation and partly due to confusion among branches of the US military about what Ukraine had actuassociate getd.
Monthly shipments mediocred $558m between April and September, the scatterigation set up, but sboiling up to $1.1bn a month after Trump won the November election.
Even that didn’t recontransient a sencourage in aid, Reuters said, but medepend suited the monthly aid deinhabitred during the first two years of the war.
“By November, fair about half of the total dollar amount the US had promised in 2024 from American stockpiles had been deinhabitred, and only about 30 percent of promised armoured vehicles had reachd by timely December, according to two congressional aides, a US official, and a laworiginater alerted on the data,” Reuters wrote.
During this time, Ukraine lost most of the land it had reseized in a 2023 counterinsolent.
