North Korean soldiers given fake Russian military IDs, Ukraine says

By Victoria Butenko and Nectar Gan, CNN

(CNN) — North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia were given fake military documents with Russian names and birthplaces, the Ukrainian military said, amid claims from Kyiv that Russia is trying to conceal the presence of foreign fighters on the battlefield.

Ukraine’s special operations forces said in a statement Sunday they had killed three North Korean soldiers in Russia’s western Kursk region and seized their documents.

Their military identification documents “lack all the stamps and photos, the patronymic names are given in the Russian manner, and the place of birth is signed as the Republic of Tuva,” the statement said, referring to a Russian region in southern Siberia bordering Mongolia.

But the signatures on the documents are in Korean, which “indicates the real origin of these soldiers,” the statement added.

“This case once again confirms that Russia is resorting to any means to hide its losses on the battlefield and conceal foreign presence,” the statement said.

US, Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence estimates put the number of North Korean soldiers in Russia between 11,000 to 12,000, some of whom have already engaged in combat operations alongside tens of thousands of Russian forces to assist in recovering parts of Kursk taken in a Ukrainian offensive in August.

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

Ukraine estimates more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in Kursk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.

Previously, a senior US official said North Korea has seen “several hundred” casualties — both killed and wounded — in Kursk since October. A South Korean lawmaker said about 100 North Korean soldiers are believed to have been killed and almost 1,000 injured since being deployed to Kursk, according to the country’s intelligence agency.

Ukraine’s special forces said on December 17 that, in just three days, 50 North Korean soldiers were killed and 47 injured while fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk.

One Ukrainian unit reported that North Koreans – wearing different uniforms from the Russians – had launched infantry attacks using the “same tactics as 70 years ago,” in an apparent reference to the Korean War, where waves of infantry were used.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have ever officially acknowledged the presence of North Korean troops in Russia.

Zelensky has said Russia is attempting to conceal the losses of North Korean troops on the battlefield, resorting to extreme tactics to disguise the identity of North Korean soldiers killed in combat.

“Russians are trying… to literally burn the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in battle,” Zelensky said in a statement on X on December 17, alongside a video purportedly showing Russian soldiers setting fire to the bodies of North Korean soldiers.

Separately, a Ukrainian frontline drone unit posted video on December 15 purporting to show the bodies of more than 20 North Korean soldiers lined up in an icy field. The quality of the video was not good enough to verify their identity.

Lt. Andriі Kovalenko, an official in Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the Ukrainian unit captured the footage before Russia was able to evacuate the bodies.

“They try to conceal the involvement of North Koreans in specific operations as much as possible. Therefore, they usually put these bodies in a row, then tracked vehicles arrive and take the bodies away,” Kovalenko told Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform.

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This story has been updated with additional information. CNN’s Yoonjung Seo and Svitlana Vasova contributed reporting.