Western officials told the BBC that in just three months, North Korean troops have suffered nearly 40% casualties in fighting in the Kursk region in western Russia.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 4,000 of the estimated 11,000 troops dispatched from North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) had been killed or injured in the fighting.

The term includes persons who were killed, wounded, missing, or captured. As of mid-January, about 1,000 out of 4,000 people were believed to have been killed, officials said.

These losses, if confirmed, would be unbearable for North Koreans.

It was unclear where the injured were being treated or even when and to what extent they would be replaced.

But the figures show that Kim Jong Un, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, is paying an extremely high price as he tries to help him oust Ukrainian troops from Russia ahead of possible ceasefire talks later this year.

Last August, Ukraine launched a lightning attack on Russia’s Kursk Oblast, catching Russian border guards by surprise.

The Kiev government made it clear at the time that it had no intention of retaining the territory it had seized, but was merely using it as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations.

Since then, Ukraine’s early advances in Kursk have been gradually delayed, in part because of the arrival of the North Koreans in Russia in October.

But Ukraine still retains hundreds of square kilometers of Russian territory and inflicts huge losses on its enemies.

The North Korean troops are reportedly drawn from an “elite” unit called the Storm Legion, who appear to have gone into battle with relatively little training or protection.

Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British Army tank commander, said: “These troops had little training and were led by Russian officers whom they did not understand.”

“Frankly, they didn’t stand a chance. They were thrown into the meat grinder with almost no chance of survival. They were cannon fodder and the Russian officers didn’t even care about them as much as they did their own people.”

South Korean intelligence reports say the North Koreans are unprepared for the realities of modern warfare and appear to be particularly easy targets for Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drones, a common weapon on the battlefield that has been used for years. South of the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Nonetheless, Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Alexander Silsky, warned earlier this week that North Korean soldiers were causing major problems for Ukrainian fighters on the front lines.

The general told Ukraine’s TSN Tyzhden: “They are outnumbered. There are also 11,000-12,000 highly motivated and well-prepared soldiers who are conducting offensive operations. They operate according to Soviet tactics. They operate in platoons and companies.” They rely on volume.”