Ukrainian military intelligence said on Thursday that North Korean forces suffered heavy losses during fighting in the Russian Kursk region and are facing logistical difficulties as a result of the Ukrainian attacks.
The intelligence agency, known by its acronym GUR, said Ukrainian strikes near Novoyvanovka inflicted heavy losses on North Korean units.
She added that North Korean forces also faced supply problems and even drinking water shortages.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that 3,000 North Korean soldiers were killed and wounded in fighting in the Kursk region.
This represents Ukraine’s first major estimate of North Korean casualties several weeks after Kiev announced that North Korea had sent between 10,000 and 12,000 soldiers to Russia to help it in the nearly three-year-old war.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported early Friday that the South Korean spy agency said a wounded North Korean soldier had been captured alive.
The agency appears to have confirmed earlier reports that Ukrainian forces captured a North Korean soldier sent to fight for Russia.
Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into the Kursk region in August, dealing a heavy blow to Russia’s prestige and forcing it to deploy some of its forces from eastern Ukraine, where it had been waging a slow offensive.
The Russian army was able to regain some territory in the Kursk region, but failed to completely expel the Ukrainian forces.
Russia intensifies its attacks in Ukraine
Meanwhile, Russia has sought to break Ukrainian resistance with waves of cruise missiles and drone strikes against the Ukrainian power grid and other infrastructure.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the latest attack, which occurred on Christmas morning, included 78 missiles and 106 drones that struck energy facilities. It claimed to have intercepted 59 missiles and 54 drones, and disabled 52 other drones.
Russia attacked Ukraine on Thursday with 31 explosive drones. The Ukrainian Air Force said that 20 planes were shot down, and 11 other planes did not reach their target due to interference.
Russia launched a massive barrage of missiles and drones targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Wednesday, hitting a thermal power plant and sending Ukrainians taking cover in metro stations on Christmas morning. More than 70 missiles and 100 attack drones have been used to strike Ukraine’s energy sources, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement on X.
As part of the daily bombing, Russian forces also bombed a central market in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region, with a drone, wounding eight people, according to local authorities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Thursday that Russia could strike Ukraine again with a new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile that was first used in a Nov. 21 raid on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Speaking to reporters, Putin said Russia had only a small number of Oreshnik missiles, but added that it would not hesitate to use them against Ukraine.
“We are not in a rush to use them, because they are powerful weapons intended for specific tasks,” he said. “But we do not rule out using it today or tomorrow if necessary.”
Putin said Russia had begun serial production of the new weapon and reiterated a plan to deploy some Oreshnik missiles in Belarus, Russia’s neighbor and ally, where authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday that his country could host 10 or more.
Vladimir Putin says his forces will regain full control of the western Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an attack last summer. But the Russian president, who held his annual press conference in Moscow on Thursday, did not provide a specific date.
Ukraine responded with drone strikes of its own. The Ukrainian Strategic Communications Center said that the army struck a factory in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky in the Rostov region in southern Russia that produces propellant for ballistic missiles.
“This strike is part of a comprehensive campaign to weaken the capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces to carry out terrorist attacks against Ukrainian civilians,” she said in a statement.
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