[News Today] NK TROOPS AUDIO FILE OBTAINED

[LEAD]
KBS obtained intercepted communications from Ukrainian forces. During the coversation, a North Korean mid-level officer discusses regrouping assault teams at dawn to recover fallen comrades' bodies.

[REPORT]
The Kursk region in Russia's southwest on December 20.

KBS has obtained a 17-second audio file of North Korean troops wiretapped by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine suspected the conversation via radio was likely between North Korean military leaders in charge of about 10-member units.

N. Korean troops (Conversation wiretapped by Ukraine)
It takes time to recover the bodies now.
Let's bring them early in the morning.
That's my thought. What do you think?

It appears that as the North suffered many casualties during a daytime battle on open terrain, they had to recover their comrades’ bodies under the cover of darkness at night.

Jung Gyung-woon / Korea Research Institute for Strategy
Discussion about recovering bodies under the cover of night depicts the fierce and urgent nature of the ground situation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that so far 12-thousand North Korean troops arrived to aid Russia's war and that 38-hundred of them have died or have been injured.

Despite North Korean casualties snowballing amid Russia's acceleration of military action to retake the Kursk region, experts note that Moscow's support for Pyongyang appears insufficient.

Doo Jin-ho / Korea Institute for Defense Analyses
This implies Russia's lack of operational support for North Korea, such as the handling of the remains of dead soldiers.

Ukrainian news outlets also report that junior Russian commanders are underreporting North Korean casualty numbers to their superiors.