On Monday, North Korea announced that leader Kim Jong Un had decided to dispatch troops to “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers and liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces.” Russian President Vladimir Putin later issued a statement thanking North Korea and promising not to forget the sacrifice

In January, the NIS said about 300 North Korean soldiers had died and another 2,700 had been injured, and the South Korean military increased the estimated casualties to 4,000 last month. ????????????  

Lee told reporters the NIS said that 2,000 injured North Korean soldiers were repatriated to North Korea by air or train between January and March. He cited the NIS as saying the dead North Korean soldiers were cremated in Russia before their remains were sent back home. ?????  

In a closed-door parliamentary committee briefing, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said North Korea had suffered 4,700 casualties, including 600 deaths, on the Russia-Ukraine battlefronts, according to Lee Seong Kweun, one of the lawmakers who attended the meeting. ????? ???????  

The assessment came two days after North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had sent combat troops to help Russia recapture parts of the Kursk region, which it lost control of to a surprise Ukrainian incursion last year. ????????????