'At least 100 North Koreans killed' fighting for Russia: Seoul

At least 100 North Koreans deployed to support Russia's war effort in Ukraine have been killed since entering combat in December, a South Korean lawmaker told reporters on Thursday.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce the Russian military, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory this year.

"In December, they (North Korean troops) engaged in actual combat, during which at least 100 fatalities occurred," lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun said, speaking after a briefing by South Korea's spy agency.

"The National Intelligence Service also reported that the number of injured is expected to reach nearly 1,000."

Despite those losses, the agency also said it had detected signs North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was preparing to train a new special operations force to ship westward.

Lee noted that the North's elite Storm Corps -- from which the initial deployment was drawn -- had "the capacity to send reinforcements".

The NIS also predicted "that Russia might offer reciprocal benefits" for a new deployment, Lee said, including "modernizing North Korea's conventional weaponry".

The lawmaker added that "several North Korean casualties" had already been attributed to Ukrainian missile and drone attacks as well as training accidents, with the highest ranking "at least at the level of a general".

The NIS said the high number of casualties could be attributed to the "unfamiliar battlefield environment, where North Korean forces are being utilized as expendable frontline assault units, and their lack of capability to counter drone attacks", said Lee.

"Within the Russian military, complaints have reportedly surfaced that the North Korean troops, due to their lack of knowledge about drones, are more of a burden than an asset," Lee said.

His comments followed a senior US military official on Tuesday saying North Korean forces had suffered "several hundred" casualties fighting Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk region.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky previously said North Korean troops had been at the heart of an "intensive offensive" in Kursk.

North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A landmark defense pact between Pyongyang and Moscow signed in June came into force this month.

Experts say North Korea's Kim is keen to acquire advanced technology from Russia and battle experience for his troops.

Pyongyang on Thursday lashed out at what it called "reckless provocation" by the United States and its allies for a joint statement criticizing North Korea's support for Russia's war in Ukraine, including the deployment of troops.

A foreign ministry spokesman said the 10 nations and the European Union were "distorting and slandering" Pyongyang's "normal cooperative" ties with Moscow, according to state media.

South Korea and Ukraine said last month that they would deepen security cooperation in response to the "threat" posed by the deployment of North Korean troops, but there was no mention of potential arms shipments from Seoul to Kyiv.

South Korea's suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol said earlier in November that Seoul was "not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons" to Ukraine, which would mark a major shift to a long-standing policy barring the sale of weapons to countries in active conflict.

Following Yoon's short-lived declaration of martial law this month, Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented Wednesday on South Korea's political crisis, accusing Seoul of a "provocation" to "destabilize the situation in the region" and "then rewriting or blaming Pyongyang".

In his bid to suspend civilian rule on December 3, Yoon said it would safeguard South Korea from "threats posed by North Korea's communist forces" and "eliminate anti-state elements".

South Korea's foreign ministry responded to Moscow on Thursday, calling it "inappropriate" to make claims that "not only misrepresent the facts but also undermine our consistent policies by using the domestic political situation as an excuse".

"It's clear who has been worsening the situation on the Korean peninsula and in the region," a ministry official told AFP.