This is CBS, I on the World. I'm John Batson. Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang, my colleague and co-host,

and we turn to North Korea. And the watcher we count on, Bruce Bechtel, author of North Korean

military proliferation in the Middle East and Africa.

He's a professor at Angelo State University.

Bruce, the report not confirmed that the North Korean deployment to Ukraine was in action in the Kersk Salient in these last days participating in driving the Ukrainian forces out of the Kirsts Salient over these last days, participating in driving the Ukrainian forces out of the Kersalient over

these last days. All fog of war, but that was a consistent report from Europe and from the

United States. What does that tell us about the North Korean deployment in general? What have we

learned of their time, both action and then rotate it out or

withdrawn from action and then put back in? Good day to you, Bruce. Good, good evening, John,

and good evening, Gordon. Well, I think the reports make sense because we do know, and we've seen

several reports from this,

you have, as I'm sure, too, that the North Koreans sent about 4,000 more troops to Russia to fight.

And that kind of matches up.

Actually, it was 3,000.

I'm sorry, 3,000 more troops to fight, give or take,

uh, in Russia. Uh, and this was recently. It started in February, this new deployment. You got

put those guys on ships and, and trains, etc. to get them over there. Um, but that makes

sense given the number of casualties that the North Koreans took because the numbers that I saw,

and this is getting pretty specific, were about 270 dead and about 2,700 wounded, which

adds up to about 3,000 guys. Well, how many guys went over there? About 3,000 new guys. So that looks like they were

replacement troops for the casualties the North Koreans took. Now, were they a game changer in that

campaign? You know, that's up for debate. The North Koreans have about 12,000 troops over there. They're the best trained,

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