War in Ukraine: Heavy North Korean Losses, Slovakia “Offers Its Soil” for Negotiations… Update on the Situation

Every day, Midi Libre takes stock of the situation in Ukraine. This Friday, December 27, 2024, discover the latest news about this conflict.

North Korean troops suffer heavy losses on the front, according to the White House

North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian military against Ukraine are suffering massive losses on the front lines, with about 1,000 soldiers killed or wounded in the past week in Russia's Kursk region, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday. The toll far exceeds previous U.S. officials' reports.

“It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders view these troops as expendable and are ordering them to conduct hopeless assaults on Ukrainian defenses,”, Kirby said, describing the North Korean offensive as a “massive, foot assault.” North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia's mission to the U.N. declined to comment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region, adding that Pyongyang could provide more military personnel and equipment to the Russian army. Reuters could not independently verify the death toll.

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Slovakia offers talks with Moscow

Slovakia, whose nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico visited Moscow this week, said on Friday it was ready to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, despite hostility from kyiv, which has accused it of trying to “help” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin said on Thursday that Slovakia had offered to be a “platform”for possible peace negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians, while maintaining that his country would achieve “all its objectives in Ukraine”, almost three years after the start of the invasion and a month before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, whose intentions towards kyiv remain unclear.

“We offer Slovak soil for such negotiations”, Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar wrote on Facebook on Friday. “We consider the statement of the Russian president as a positive signal to end this war, bloodshed and destruction as soon as possible”, added Juraj Blanar.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of the very few European leaders who have remained close to the Kremlin, and who stopped all military aid to Ukraine when he came to power in 2023, met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on December 22, provoking the anger of kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Mr. Fico on Monday of wanting to “help” Vladimir Putin “make money to finance the war with kyiv”, in the midst of tensions over the transit of Russian gas to Eastern Europe, which kyiv has announced it wants to stop. The Slovak foreign minister said that Bratislava had informed its “Ukrainian partners” in October of its readiness for peace talks.

Several wounded and captured North Korean soldiers have died in Ukraine, Zelensky says

“Several” wounded North Korean soldiers have died in Ukraine after being captured, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday night, accusing Russia of offering the soldiers “protection” minimal”.

“Several North Korean soldiers died today. Our soldiers managed to capture them. But they were very seriously injured and could not be saved”, he said during his daily address, denouncing “the madness of which dictatorships are capable”, by sending soldiers to die “in combat in Europe”.