North Korean troops appear to have temporarily pulled back from the frontline in Russia after suffering heavy losses, a Ukrainian special forces commander has told Sky News.

The North Korean troops fighting for Russia are highly trained and will stop at nothing to avoid surrender, Ukrainian sources tell Sam Kiley, The Independent’s World Affairs Editor, in Sumy

A thousand North Korean troops who have been fighting in the Kursk region of Russia have been killed in Vladimir Putin ’s war with Ukraine, officials have said. Western officials have told the BBC that 36 per cent of North Korean forces fighting in Russia had been killed, injured or captured by mid-January.

Soldiers of the 8th Regiment of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces resisted an assault of North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk Oblast for eight hours, killing 21 and wounding 40, the unit said on Jan.

It will mostly be missile and artillery troops who typically operate hundreds of tubed and rocket artillery systems as well as the KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles Pyongyang has already provided Moscow,

Britain's defense ministry said about 1,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed and around 3,000 more wounded fighting against Ukraine.