“These are two soldiers who, although injured, survived and were transported to kyiv where they are speaking with investigators from the SBU,” the Ukrainian security services, the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. “It was not an easy task: usually the Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded and do everything to erase evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war against “Ukraine,” he continued.
According to kyiv, 12,000 North Korean troops are in Russia’s Kursk region, of which the Ukrainian army has occupied several hundred square kilometers since August. Neither Russia nor North Korea have confirmed the presence of this contingent.
On Saturday, Volodymyr Zelensky accompanied his announcement with photos of the two suspected soldiers in custody. One of them has visible bandages around his hands, the other around his jaw. According to the leader, the prisoners receive “all necessary medical assistance”. He claimed to have ordered the SBU (Ukrainian state security services) to provide the press with access to the detainees: “The world must know what is happening,” he said.
North Korean forces suffered “significant losses”
In a statement, the SBU said one of the soldiers was captured on Thursday by special forces, and the second by paratroopers. According to the SBU, the prisoners speak neither English nor Russian, and exchanges are conducted in Korean with interpreters in cooperation with the South Korean intelligence services (NIS).
At the time of his capture, one of them had Russian military papers with another person’s name. According to the SBU, he claimed to have been born in 2005, serving in the army since 2021, and stressed that he was thinking of going to train in Russia, not fight. “He initially thought he was being sent for training, then realized upon arrival in Russia that he had been deployed” to the front, said the NIS, Korea’s intelligence agency. South.
The soldier said North Korean forces suffered “significant losses during the fighting.”
According to the SBU, the other soldier did not have any identification documents on him. He is said to be a sniper born in 1999, in the army since 2016, and answered some questions in writing because he has an injured jaw.
Seoul’s intelligence agency said one of the men was “deprived of food and water for four to five days before being captured.”
At the end of December, the spokesperson for the American National Security Council, John Kirby, assured that “more than a thousand” soldiers deployed by Pyongyang in Russia had been killed or injured during assaults in the Kursk region. “It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders view them as troops that can be sacrificed,” John Kirby said.
Russian advance in the East
The involvement of a regular foreign army constituted a major escalation in the invasion launched almost three years ago by Vladimir Putin and which is entering a critical phase with the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House. The latter, who is due to take office on January 20, said Thursday that he was preparing a meeting with Vladimir Putin to “put an end” to this conflict.
Both camps therefore try, at all costs, to improve or maintain their positions before possible negotiations. The Russian army claimed on Saturday to have gained ground northwest of the Ukrainian town of Kurakhové, an important stronghold that Moscow said it had conquered earlier this week in the Donetsk region (east).
In a press release, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that units of the Center grouping had “liberated” the town of Shevchenko. This village is located about 10 kilometers northwest of the center of the town of Kurakhové, an important defensive position.
