#NORTH KOREA

North Korea appears to have sent at least 3,000 more of its troops to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine, the South Korean military said on Thursday.

Hundreds of wounded Russian troops who fought in Ukraine have been taken to North Korean hospitals for treatment, Moscow’s envoy to Pyongyang has told state media.

North Korean troops fighting in Russia’s Kursk region have been withdrawn due to heavy casualties, according to reports citing Ukrainian Special Operations Forces.

A North Korean soldier captured by Ukrainian forces has said he had no idea he was going to Russia or who he was fighting against.

Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last autumn.

Ukrainian forces have launched several assaults against Russian positions in Russia’s western Kursk region, both Kyiv and Moscow sources have reported on Sunday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to solidify his country's comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia in a letter to President Vladimir Putin, state media outlet KCNA reported on Tuesday.

North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines of Russia's war against Ukraine, with a thousand of their troops killed or wounded in the past week alone in Russia's Kursk region, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday.

An estimated 12,000 N. Korean troops are already in Russia.

The foreign ministers of 11 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, along with the European Union, issued a joint statement on Monday condemning the “increasing military cooperation” between North Korea and Russia.

The United States hit North Korea and Russia on Monday with new sanctions, targeting Pyongyang's financial and military support for Moscow, as well as its ballistic missile program, the U.S. Treasury has said.

Satellite imagery from a U.K. research group reveals that Russia has supplied North Korea with over one million barrels of oil since March.

North Korea aims to obtain Russian missile, nuclear, and military technologies in return for its support of Moscow's war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian foreign minister has said.

Russia is attempting to push Ukrainian forces from its western Kursk region with tens of thousands of troops, Ukraine's top commander said on Monday, aiming to retake territory it lost in the summer, while its offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on.

Vladimir Putin has signed into law a strategic partnership treaty with North Korea that includes a provision on mutual defense, Reuters reported on Saturday.

North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia's Kursk region have been attacked for the first time, a senior Ukrainian defense official reported on Monday.

North Korea conducted what appeared to be its longest ever intercontinental ballistic missile test on Thursday as South Korea warned Pyongyang could seek missile technology from Russia in exchange for deploying troops to help with the war in Ukraine.

North Korea’s deployment to Russia to aid its war against Ukraine has the potential to lengthen the already 2,5-year-long conflict and draw in additional actors, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday.

The South Korean president has warned that North Korea’s deployment of troops in Russia is a threat to international security.

Nearly 200 North Korean defectors who live in South Korea, many with military backgrounds, seek to deploy to Ukraine to launch a psychological warfare campaign against Pyongyang’s troops reported to have deployed to Russia, according to the South China Morning Post.