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.

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,