North Korea will send five thousand sappers and one thousand deminers to Kursk
The details of the operation were announced at the end of a meeting - the third in three months and the second in the last two weeks - between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Russian Defence Council
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From our correspondent
NEW DELHI - The cooperative relationship between Russia and North Korea has taken a new leap forward with the announcement that Pyongyang will send another 6,000 troops to Kursk to assist Moscow in the reconstruction work in the region bordering Ukraine. According to Russian media reports, this will consist of one thousand deminers and five thousand military engineers tasked with restoring an infrastructure network that has been heavily damaged by months of fighting with Ukrainian forces.
The details of the operation were announced at the end of a meeting - the third in three months and the second in the last two weeks - between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Sergei Shoigu, the former Russian Defence Minister who now serves as Secretary of the Defence Council and is one of President Vladimir Putin's closest advisors.
"Following the expulsion of the invaders from Russian soil, we have decided to continue our fruitful cooperation," Shoigu said. The North Korean Kcna dispatch offered no details about the size and characteristics of the contingent of soldiers, but reiterated Kim's "unconditional support" and announced plans to erect memorials in both countries to honour "the heroic deeds" of North Korean soldiers who fell in the Kursk.
North Korea has never officially revealed how many soldiers it has deployed on the Russian-Ukrainian front, nor how many of them were killed. However, according to assessments made by the intelligence services of South Korea, the United States, and Ukraine, Pyongyang reportedly sent some 15,000 soldiers to Russia - in addition to missiles, cannons, and millions of artillery shells. Last April, the Seoul services estimated the number of North Korean casualties at about 600. According to British intelligence the total number of dead and wounded would be around 6 thousand and would be the result of their deployment 'in massive high-friction infantry attacks'.
