SEOUL: About 600 North Korean troops have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine out of a total deployment of 15,000, South Korean lawmakers said on Wednesday, citing the country’s intelligence agency.

North Korea has suffered some 4,700 casualties so far, including injuries and deaths, though its troops have shown signs of improved combat capabilities over about six months by using modern weapons like drones, the lawmakers said.

In return for dispatching troops and supplying weapons to Russia, Pyongyang appears to have received technical assistance on spy satellites, as well as drones and anti-air missiles, they said.

“After six months of participation in the war, the North Korean military has become less inept, and its combat capability has significantly improved as it becomes accustomed to using new weapons such as drones,” Lee Seong-kweun, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, told reporters, after being briefed by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

Pyongyang earlier this week confirmed for the first time that it had sent troops to fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine under orders from leader Kim Jong Un and that it had helped regain control of Russian territory occupied by Ukraine.

North Korea’s unprecedented deployment of thousands of troops, as well as massive amounts of artillery ammunition and missiles, gave Russia a crucial battlefield advantage in the western Kursk region and has brought the two economically and politically isolated countries closer.

Lee, the lawmaker, added that bodies of dead North Korean soldiers were cremated in Kursk before being shipped back home. Pyongyang is also believed to have sent about 15,000 workers to Russia, said the lawmakers, citing intelligence assessments.

North Korean labor overseas is known as a source of the regime’s hard currency income but UN sanctions prohibit the use of North Korean labor in third countries.