18 deserters

Ukraine: Soldiers from North Korea are already deserting

Russian soldiers are patrolling the Kursk region near the Ukrainian border - numerous North Korean allies are said to have already fled the front line.(Bild: APA/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)

Shortly after taking up positions on the Russian front in the invasion war against Ukraine, 18 soldiers from North Korea are likely to have already fled. Kremlin fighters now want to track down the fugitives again.

As "Newsweek" reports, citing Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne, the North Korean troops were stationed in the Russian oblasts of Kursk and Bryansk - just a few kilometers from the border with Ukraine. 

Commanders try to cover up desertion
"The Russian armed forces are currently searching for the deserters," the South Korean newspaper "Choson Ilbo" quoted a Ukrainian military official as saying. "The soldiers have not yet been arrested, and local Russian military units are reportedly trying to conceal the incident from their superiors."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is also convinced that North Korea provided Russia with troops, as he explained in a video message: 

The troops sent by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un were to help Moscow in the southwest of the country, where Russia is still fighting against Ukraine's invasion of Kursk. According to Ukrainian and South Korean sources, "several thousand" soldiers were sent to Russia. 

Kim wants to strengthen the alliance with his ally, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. He has already promised Moscow "full support" and has already supplied it with weapons, such as artillery shells, in the past. 

North Koreans killed in Ukraine
The information has not yet been confirmed by independent sources, but many other reports indicate that North Korean soldiers are indeed in Ukraine or in the Russian border region. At the beginning of October, the Kyiv Post reported that six North Koreans were killed near the occupied city of Donetsk when a Ukrainian missile hit the area.