The Biden administration is pledging to approve fresh military aid to Ukraine in the coming days, including crucial air defense systems, as North Korean forces face mounting casualties in their first major deployment to a European conflict.
John Kirby, the US national security communications adviser, told reporters on Friday that in just the last week North Korean troops had suffered more than 1,000 casualties in what he referred to as failed “human wave” assaults near the Kursk border-region, which confirms similar figures reported by South Korea.
According to Kirby, there are also reports of North Korean soldiers taking their own lives rather than surrendering.
“These human wave tactics that we’re seeing haven’t really been all that effective,” Kirby said. “Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses.”
The promised US security assistance package is expected to be announced “in the next couple of days”, Kirby said, though it is unclear when that will be and how much it will include.
The aid surge comes weeks after the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, in Washington to pledge extensive support including a planned delivery of hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January.
That package also included a training for new Ukrainian troops at sites outside the country and finalizing $20bn in loans backed by immobilized Russian assets.
The accelerated aid packages come as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to become the country’s commander-in-chief next month. Trump has signaled a stark departure from current US policy on Ukraine, including his team reportedly developing a peace proposal that would sideline Ukraine’s Nato membership aspirations and potentially cede territory to Russia.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he could end the conflict within 24 hours without offering much detail.
The North Korean deployment follows a mutual defense pact signed between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, at a summit in Pyongyang in June.
It is estimated that up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to support Russian forces in Ukraine, according to a previous tally from US and South Korean officials.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed earlier this week that North Korean casualties in the Kursk region had exceeded 3,000, though this figure could not be independently verified.
The involvement of North Korean troops follows extensive material support from Pyongyang, which has reportedly sent more than 10,000 containers of artillery rounds and other military equipment to Russia.
South Korean military officials say North Korea is using the Ukraine conflict to modernize its warfare capabilities, raising concerns about increased military threats in the Korean peninsula.
