North Korea is said to have sent around 12,000 soldiers to support Russia. Ukraine captured two of them during fighting in Kursk, Ukrainian President Zelensky said. The men would now be interrogated.
Two North Korean soldiers have been taken as prisoners of war by Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this on social networks.
The men were injured and taken to Kiev, where the Ukrainian secret service was interrogating them. Zelensky announced that the media would also have access to the prisoners. “The world must know the truth of what is happening,” the president said.
An image from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Telegram channel shows a cell in which a North Korean prisoner of war is said to be.
Photo shows Russian army ID card
Zelensky added photos to his posts that allegedly show the prisoners. His information could not be verified. According to the Ukrainian secret service SBU, the two prisoners speak neither Russian nor Ukrainian. Their questioning is being carried out in cooperation with the South Korean secret service and with the help of Korean interpreters.
One photo showed a Russian army ID card issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia's Tuva region, near the border with Mongolia. According to some reports, the Russian army is providing North Korean soldiers with fake documents to conceal their identities.
According to the SBU, one of the prisoners said that the Russian army ID card was given to him in the fall when he came to Russia for a week of joint training with Russian units. The man is said to have said he was born in 2005 and has been a grenadier in the North Korean army since 2021. He believed he was being sent to Russia for training “and not to wage war against Ukraine.”
Heavy North Korean losses
It would be difficult to capture North Korean soldiers alive, Zelensky wrote. He accused Russian and North Korean troops of “finishing off” wounded North Koreans so that their involvement in the war against Ukraine could not be proven.
At the end of December, the Ukrainian president reported that several North Korean soldiers injured in combat had died after being captured.
It is estimated that isolated communist North Korea has sent 12,000 soldiers to Russia to fight Ukraine. Among other things, Moscow is strengthening its units with North Koreans in counterattacks in the Kursk region in order to drive Ukrainian troops out of Russia. According to estimates from both Ukraine and the USA, the North Koreans are suffering heavy losses there.
