Hundreds of North Korean soldiers have been wounded or killed already while fighting for Russia, according to a US official.

Vladimir Putin’s defence deal with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un – signed only in June – means thousands of troops are now fighting Ukraine on Moscow’s behalf.

Many are thought to be in Kursk, the Russian region which Ukrainian soldiers are still holding after their shock cross-border incursion earlier this year.

The senior US military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the AFP news agency: “Several hundred casualties is our latest estimate that the DPRK has suffered.”

DPRK is an abbreviation for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters on Monday that North Korean soldiers suffered casualties while fighting alongside Russia, but did not give a specific number.

He said they’ve been fighting since “a little over a week ago”, mainly in infantry roles and not yet in Ukraine.

This week marks the first time significant casualties have been reported since North Korea sent around 10,000 troops to help Russia in October.

It comes after Ukraine claimed at least 30 North Korean soldiers were killed or wounded over the weekend.

The official said “all ranks” were among the casualties, and including everything from “light wounds up to being KIA [killed in action].”

They added: “These are not battle-hardened troops. They haven’t been in combat before.”

He said this was probably contributing to “why they have been suffering the casualties that they have at the hands of the Ukrainians”.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday: “Ukraine’s Defence Forces and intelligence are working to determine the full extent of the actual losses suffered by Russian units that include North Koreans.”

He said there is “not a single reason for North Koreans to die in this war”.

Putin has also been giving his own troops a tough time  on the frontline.

As Keir Starmer said earlier this year, the Russian president was already treating his own people like “meat in a grinder”, and estimates suggest Russia has endured around 700,000 casualties since the war began.

And in recent weeks, the Russian president has been pushing his troops forward at the fastest rate of the war yet, in an effort to secure more Ukrainian land before Donald Trump returns to the White House and presses for a peace deal.

The US president-elect has described the war as “carnage”, saying: “We’re trying to get the war stopped. That horrible, horrible war that is doing on in Ukraine with Russia.

“We’ve got a little progress. It is a tough one, it is a nasty one.

“People are being killed at levels that nobody’s ever seen.”

He added: “It’s very level fields [in Ukraine], the only thing that stops a bullet is a body. And the number of soldiers that are being killed on both sides is astronomical.”

It’s not yet clear how Trump will achieve peace between the warring countries, but there’s speculation he could pressure Ukraine to cede its occupied territories to Russia to end the war.