South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) estimates that 2,000 North Korean soldiers who supported Russia in the Ukraine war have died in combat, as reported by a Seoul lawmaker after receiving a report from the agency, which had previously estimated 600 casualties in April.
During a closed-door meeting of the parliamentary intelligence committee, the NIS indicated that Pyongyang has sent around 15,000 soldiers to Russia to date and is preparing a third deployment of about 6,000 men, including 1,000 sappers who have already arrived at the front, as reported by lawmakers from the two main parties cited by the local news agency Yonhap.
Earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that North Korea would send construction experts and deminers to the Kursk region, while Pyongyang confirmed in April that it had deployed troops to support Russia in Ukraine and admitted that its soldiers had died in combat.