ISW named possible monthly losses of North Korean troops in Kursk

North Korea will deploy a new military contingent in Russia by mid-March 2025.

The new deployment of North Korean troops will maintain the current pace of infantry attacks in the Kursk region, but the new groups of North Korean soldiers will suffer no less losses, which could reach 30 to 45 killed and wounded per month. This is reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

It is noted that North Korea will deploy a new military contingent in Russia by mid-March 2025.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on January 22 that a senior U.S. defense official said additional North Korean forces would arrive in Russia “within the next two months” (approximately mid-March 2025). However, the NYT did not specify the number of troops or whether North Korea was rotating forces or increasing the size of its overall force in Russia.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff reported on December 23 that North Korea may be preparing to deploy an unspecified number of additional forces to Ukraine and military equipment to Russia, either as part of a rotation or additional troop deployment.

“The entire North Korean contingent in Russia could be killed or wounded in combat by around mid-April 2025 at the current rate of losses, and the new deployment of North Korean troops – whether to reinforce the current grouping or to rotate existing forces – is likely intended to maintain the pace of Russian operations, despite heavy losses, which will amount to 30 to 000 people (total killed and wounded) per month,” ISW analysts believe.

As is known, North Korean troops trained in eastern Russia for at least a month before deploying to the Kursk region for further exercises in the near rear in November 2024 and joining hostilities at least in early December 2024.

This timeline is roughly consistent with the possibility that a new contingent of North Korean troops could be trained and replace the shrinking group in the Kursk region by mid-April 2025, assuming that the next reported batch of North Korean troops will train for the same amount of time as their predecessors and will deploy to Russia in late January or early February 2025.

“These new North Korean forces are unlikely to be able to significantly improve Russian operations and will likely face the same high casualties and difficulties in interacting with Russian forces as the current North Korean contingent, provided that the Russian command continues to use North Korean forces in the same way as it has done so far,” the ISW report said.

ISW named the timeline for the destruction of all North Korean troops in Kursk