US says North Korean soldiers killing themselves in Ukraine

The White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday that Russia is deploying “human waves” of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine, and that some have taken their own lives to avoid capture by Ukrainian forces.

The suicides by the North Korean soldiers are “likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured,” Kirby said, in statements cited by NBC News.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement yesterday that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers have died or been wounded in Russia’s Kursk region.

Kirby said that 1,000 soldiers have died in the past week only.

Estimates by the United States and its allies say North Korea deployed an estimated 11,000 soldiers in Ukraine. Neither Russia nor North Korea has publicly confirmed these deployments.

“North Koreans are conducting massed, dismounted assaults against Ukrainian positions in Kursk,” Kirby said, adding that these “human wave tactics” are ineffective.

“These North Korean soldiers appear to be highly indoctrinated, pushing attacks even when it is clear that those attacks are futile,” he said, and that they are being treated as “expendable” by being used in “hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses”.