Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said forces operating in Russia’s Kursk region have captured two North Korean soldiers.
“Our soldiers captured North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, although injured, survived and were transported to Kiev, where they are now communicating with the Ukrainian Security Service,” Zelensky said on Saturday (11) in a statement on X, which includes several images of the injured soldiers.
According to Ukrainian and Western assessments, around 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy hundreds of square kilometers after carrying out a cross-border incursion in August last year.
Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that more than a thousand North Korean soldiers were killed or injured in Kursk in the last week of December.
Zelensky said of the two Korean soldiers who were captured: “It was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean militaries usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
Soldiers in bunk beds
The Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, released a video purportedly showing the soldiers.
In the video, the SBU spokesman says that one of the North Koreans was captured on January 9 by Ukrainian special forces, and the other by Ukrainian paratroopers.
“They are being held in appropriate conditions that meet the requirements of international law,” the SBU said.
The video shows the two soldiers on bunk beds in a cell. One of them has a wound in his jaw. Neither is heard speaking. An unidentified doctor says the second soldier has a fractured leg.
The SBU spokesperson said that “communication with them is carried out through Korean interpreters” in cooperation with the South Korean intelligence service.
The SBU released images of a Russian military ID card issued in the name of another person from Tuva, Russia, which it said was being carried by one of the captured soldiers. According to the SBU, the soldier said he received the document in Russia last fall. He also said that some of North Korea’s combat units had only a week of training with Russian troops. The other captive was undocumented, the SBU said.
The soldier said he served in the North Korean army and thought he was being sent to Russia for training rather than combat, according to the SBU report.
This content was originally published in Two North Korean soldiers were captured in the Kursk region, says Zelensky on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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