Ukraine captured two North Korean soldiers wounded on the battlefield in Russia’s Kursk region and transferred them to kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
“Two soldiers, although wounded, survived and were transported to kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Ukrainian Security Service,” Zelenskyy wrote in X, along with a series of photographs of the prisoners.
It is the first time Ukraine says it has detained North Korean troops since Pyongyang deployed about 11,000 troops to support Russia late last year, according to the United States and its allies. Neither Russia nor North Korea have publicly acknowledged the troop deployment.
“As with all prisoners of war, these two North Korean soldiers are receiving the necessary medical assistance,” Zelenskyy said, noting that their capture “was not an easy task,” adding the claim that Russian and North Korean soldiers “normally execute to their wounded.” erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
One of the images posted by Zelenskyy showed a man with both arms bandaged and a striped sweater draped over his shoulders. Another man is photographed with swollen lips and a bandage around his head.
Two other images showed the cover and inside pages of a Russian document.
Ukraine’s military warned in December that Russia was trying to “conceal the presence of North Korean military personnel by issuing them false documents.”
He said that the military cards of North Koreans killed in the conflicts were “missing all stamps and photographs” and that the signatures on the documents are in Korean, which “indicates the real origin of these soldiers.”
In October, South Korean intelligence services said North Korean special forces soldiers were given Russian military uniforms and Russian-made weapons, as well as fake identification documents to make it appear they came from Russia’s Far East, where people may look like North Koreans.
Zelensky said he had ordered Ukraine’s security service to allow journalists access to prisoners.
“The world needs to know the truth about what is happening,” he said.
Zelenskyy said last week that 4,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have launched a cross-border incursion since August.
The same month, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said some North Korean soldiers had taken their lives rather than surrender to Ukrainian forces.
These suicides, he said, “were probably due to fear of reprisals against their families in North Korea if they were captured.”
