North Korean Army In Kursk Uses Fake Identity: Russian Last Name, Tuva Republic's Birth

Ukrainian troops boarded the Russian T-90M tank which was seized at Kursk. (Wikimedia Commons/Mil.gov.ua/Roman Pilipey)

JAKARTA - The Ukrainian military has revealed the identity of the past used by North Korean soldiers who fought on the Russian side on the Kursk battlefield, when Kyiv claimed Russia was trying to hide foreign fighters on the battlefield.

Ukrainian special operations forces said in a statement on Sunday they had killed three North Korean soldiers in the western Russian Kursk region and confiscated their documents.

Their military identification documents "have no stamps and photos, their last names written in Russian, and their birthplaces signed as the Tuva Republic," the statement said, referring to Russia's southern Siberian territory bordering Mongolia, as quoted by CNN December 24.

But the signature of the document is in Korean, which "shows the true origin of these soldiers," the statement added.

"This case once again confirms Russia is using all means to hide its losses on the battlefield and hide foreign presence," the statement said.

Earlier, intelligence from the United States, Ukraine, and South Korea cited the number of North Korean troops in Russia between 11,000 and 12,000, some of whom have engaged in joint combat operations of tens of thousands of Russian troops to help retake some of the Kursk captured in the Ukrainian attack in August.

North Korean troops appear to have suffered heavy losses in the region, according to US and Ukrainian officials, as officials in Kyiv accused Russia of trying to cover up their involvement.

A senior US official said "several hundred" Ukrainian soldiers had been injured or killed in Kursk since last October.

Meanwhile, members of the South Korean Parliament based on the country's intelligence agency said about 100 North Korean soldiers were believed to have been killed and nearly 1,000 others injured since being deployed to Kursk.

On December 17, Ukrainian special forces said about 50 North Korean soldiers were killed and 47 others injured while fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk in three days.

It is known, neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have officially recognized the presence of North Korean troops in Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was trying to hide the lives of North Korean troops on the battlefield, using extreme tactics to disguise the identities of the brands killed in combat.

"Russia is trying to really burn the faces of North Korean soldiers who died in the fighting," President Zelensky said in a statement on X on December 17, alongside a video purportedly showing Russian soldiers burning the bodies of North Korean soldiers.