A North Korean soldier who was captured while fighting in Russia's war against Ukraine has died of his wounds, South Korea's spy agency said Friday. Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to reinforce Russia's military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock border incursion in August.

Following talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul in Seoul, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated that Russia is prepared to supply North Korea (DPRK) with advanced space and satellite technologies in return for weapons and equipment to aid its war efforts in Ukraine.

The first confirmation of the capture of a North Korean soldier came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Dec 23 that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” so far. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) also said on Dec 23 that more than 1,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded.

North Korea is learning valuable lessons from fighting against Ukraine, making it an increased threat to its neighbors, a US official said. In recent months, North Korea has sent around 12,000 troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine as part of a new security pact between its leader,

The confirmation followed a report from Ukraine's military-focused news outlet Militarnyi on Dec. 26, which first revealed the capture without specifying the date of the incident.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006, and the measures have been steadily strengthened over the years with the aim of halting Pyongyang's development of nuclear we

North Korea is “significantly benefiting” from its troops gaining battlefield experience fighting alongside Russian forces as it makes them more capable of waging war against rivals South Korea and Japan,

Russia has endured over 700,000 casualties since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—more than in all of Moscow’s conflicts since World War II combined, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Jan.

Pyongyang might have acquired advanced missile technology from Moscow in exchange for its involvement in the war, analysts say North Korea could raise its army's deployment to support Russia's war in Ukraine to as many as 100,