North Korean troops run away days after arriving in Russia to fight Ukraine

Some 18 North Korean troops are believed to have deserted the frontlines just days after being sent to Ukraine by Pyongyang to fight for Vladimir Putin.
Pyongyang’s troops were deployed to Russia’s Kursk and Bryansk oblasts where Ukrainian forces launched a counter-invasion in August.
The move has been a blow to Putin with Kyiv’s forces occupying and holding internationally recognised Russian territory despite the Kremlin reportedly having advanced notice of Ukraine’s plan.

Ukraine’s public broadcasting company, Suspilne, reported that the North Korean troops were deployed around four miles from the border with Ukraine inside Russia and cited intelligence officials who said Russian authorities were looking for the soldiers after they abandoned their posts.
The news comes after reports that Moscow was attempting to assemble a battalion of foreign troops sent by North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to help push Ukraine out of the Kursk region.
Ukrainian media suggested the soldiers would be deployed in combat roles inside Russia as part of a “special Buryat battalion” named after Mongolic ethnic groups indigenous to Siberia, Mongolia and northern China.
In June, Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years signing a “comprehensive strategic partnership pact” with Kim Jong-un.
The treaty acts as a mutual defence agreement meaning if either Russia or North Korea “get into a state of war due to an armed aggression” the other must provide military and other assistance.
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Last week, the New York Times reported that Russia had suffered 600,000 casualties – dead or wounded – since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
US officials blamed the high casualty rate on a grinding war of attrition that over the past year has not seen much in the way of territorial changes.
September this year was said to have been the bloodiest month of the war so far for Russia, according to US officials.