Over 12,000 North Korean troops are estimated to be fighting against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, the United Nations Security Council learned last week.

These days Russia and North Korea are writing a new battlefield history together. North Korea has dispatched some 12,000 troops to fight in Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. The soldiers are believed to be some of North Korea’s most elite,

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.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has offered to return them to North Korea should its leader, Kim Jong Un, arrange for Ukrainian soldiers to be released.

The United States warned on Wednesday that North Korea is benefiting from its troops fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine, gaining experience that makes Pyongyang "more capable of waging war against its neighbors.

North Korean troops stationed in Russia’s Kursk region have reportedly been instructed to commit suicide rather than risk being captured.