These propaganda images of North Korean soldiers say a lot about the conflict

INTERNATIONAL – Well-publicized prisoners. Ukraine claimed on Saturday January 11 to have captured two soldiers presented as North Korean and to have interrogated them in detention, a first since kyiv and its Western allies accused Pyongyang of having sent troops to fight in Russia.

Images broadcast, as you can discover in the video at the top of this article, by the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service. But the interrogation took place with the support of South Korean counterintelligence, the NIS.

According to the SBU, the prisoners speak neither English nor Russian, and discussions are conducted in Korean with NIS interpreters. According to the SBU, one of the soldiers claimed to be born in 2005, serving in the army since 2021, and said he was thinking of going to Russia to train, not fight. “These are two soldiers who, although injured, survived and were transported to kyiv where they are speaking with SBU investigators”Ukraine’s security services, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.

Satellite images within Russian borders

This participation of the South Korean services in the interrogation is not anecdotal. Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia and North Korea have strengthened their ties, signing a mutual defense pact last November. However, it was precisely around this date that Seoul’s involvement in the war of images between Russia and Ukraine began.

Thus, as early as October 2024, the NIS released photos purporting to demonstrate the sending of weapons from Pyongyang to Moscow; later, it was the training of North Korean troops inside Russian territory that was shown in satellite images, still published by South Korean intelligence services.

For Seoul, it is of course a question of responding to the movement of its enemy brother towards the north by showing the reach of its intelligence services. But it is also, as a correspondent fromAssociated Pressthe sign of existential anxiety: North Korean troops, by gaining experience on the ground, could be better prepared for combat. In addition, Moscow could agree to significant technological transfers, particularly in the nuclear field.

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