Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he’s willing to hand over the soldiers to North Korea, if Kim Jong Un arranges for an exchange with Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia.

Soldiers fighting for Ukraine describe facing relentless waves of determined North Korean troops, Russian units with improved tactics, and Ukraine’s own struggles with exhaustion and sinking morale.

There is mounting evidence from the battlefield, intelligence reports and testimonies of defectors that some North Korean soldiers are resorting to extreme measures as they support Russia's three-year war with Ukraine.

To avoid being hit by multiple drone attacks from the air, North Koreans have taken to forming a ‘human shield,’” says a Seoul-based specialist.

South Korea's military said on Friday that it suspects North Korea is preparing to send more troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces, even after suffering losses and seeing some of its soldiers captured.

Seoul has previously claimed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent more than 10,000 soldiers as ‘cannon fodder’ to help Moscow fight Kyiv, in return for Russian technical assistance for Pyongyang’s

SEOUL— North Korean troop fatalities and injuries in Ukraine have likely exceeded 3,000, including about 300 deaths and 2,700 injuries, a South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country's spy agency said on Monday (Jan 13).

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a statement it has “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on January 9 in the Kursk battlefield in Russia”.

North Korean troops, unacknowledged by their own country, are getting chewed up in a vicious war in which, far from home, they are “cannon fodder” fighting anonymously on behalf of the Russians.

Britain's defense ministry said about 1,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed and around 3,000 more wounded fighting against Ukraine.