The Ukrainian special forces released a photo of a presumed North Korean prisoner of war. On January 4th (local time), according to Reuters and Ukrainian media RBC, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in a nightly video address that a battalion comprising North Korean infantry and Russian paratroopers was lost near the village of Makhnoivka in the Kursk region. Zelensky described it as a significant event but did not provide specific details.
Reuters reported that a battalion generally consists of several hundred individuals. It is known that North Korea deployed about 11,000 troops to the Kursk area, but they have suffered significant losses due to unfamiliar combat environments and lack of support. According to President Zelensky, as of December 23rd last year, North Korean military casualties exceeded 3,000.
Despite the participation of North Korean troops, the Russian forces, employing a strategy of overwhelming manpower, have been pushing the exhausted Ukrainian forces. On the same day, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it had taken control of the village of Nadiya in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region.
The drone and missile exchanges have intensified. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Ukraine attempted to attack the Belgorod Oblast using ATACMS long-range missiles provided by the United States, but all were intercepted.
Russia warned that there would be retaliation against such actions by the Ukrainian regime, threatening to use hypersonic ballistic missiles to strike the center of Kyiv.