South Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Hwang Joon-kook speaks during a U.N. Security Council session, in this undated photo captured from U.N. Web TV.

North Korea's ballistic missile launch this week shows where its "blood" money ends up, South Korea's top envoy to the United Nations said Wednesday, accusing the recalcitrant regime of sacrificing its own people for its nuclear ambitions.

Ambassador Hwang Joon-kook made the remarks during a U.N. Security Council meeting on the North's launch Monday of a claimed intermediate-range hypersonic missile, as he cited Seoul's assessment that the regime has suffered at least 1,100 troop casualties during combat in Ukraine.

"The Jan. 6 missile launch shows exactly where this blood money ends up," Hwang said.

"The DPRK sacrifices its own people to fulfill its nuclear ambitions and further contributes to deaths and destruction in Ukraine," he added. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Hwang described the North Korean troops, deployed to Russia, as essentially "slaves" to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who he said are "brainwashed" to sacrifice their lives on faraway battlefields to raise money for the Kim regime and secure advanced military technology from Russia.

"This is why I repeatedly emphasize that we need to look at both nuclear and human rights issues of the DPRK simultaneously at the Security Council," he said. "The human rights situation in the DPRK remains intrinsically linked to international peace and security."

The ambassador condemned the North's latest launch "in the strongest possible terms," noting that it followed over 50 ballistic missile launches last year alone.

"(It) constitutes a clear threat to international peace and security," he said. "It is yet another flagrant violation of multiple Security Council resolutions, which explicitly decided that the DPRK should not conduct any launches that use ballistic missile technology."

The North's latest launch marked its first provocation this year ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. (Yonhap)