North Korea has supplied Russia with thousands of troops to fight against Ukraine, intelligence officials said, but old footage that has resurfaced on social media does not show the funeral of a general deployed by Pyongyang to lead its troops in the ongoing invasion.

South Korea's military has said that North Korea is preparing to continue aiding Russia in its war with Ukraine, despite casualties.

Despite the relatively high casualty rate, Zelensky added that North Korea might send even more resources to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s armies.

South Korea warns of North Korea’s preparations to supply more troops and drones to aid Russia in the Ukraine war.

"Through various sources of information and intelligence, we assess that North Korean troops who have recently engaged in combat with Ukrainian forces have suffered around 1,100 casualties," the JCS said in a statement.

The Russian army went to war in Ukraine in February 2022 with around 2,000 tracked howitzers. In 34 months of brutal combat, the army has lost no fewer than 800 of these self-propelled artillery pieces to Ukrainian action. Hundreds more have been sidelined by a shortage of fresh gun barrels.

After two years of intense courtship, progressing from warm words to vital weapons, summits in Pyongyang to 11,000 soldiers on the ground in Russia, the burgeoning relationship between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un was signed in blood this week when the first stories emerged of North Korean casualties on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded fighting for Moscow in Russia's western Kursk region.

North Korea and Russia are deepening their military cooperation, as Pyongyang ramps up the supply of arms to Moscow for its war in Ukraine and receives much needed cash and oil from the Kremlin in return.

Zelensky warns of greater military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, including sending more troops and military equipment

North Korea’s elite troops have faced severe losses in Russia's war with Ukraine, with South Korean intelligence reporting more than 1,100 killed or injured in recent weeks and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy estimating the toll at more than 3,