A North Korean soldier taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces after being deployed to fight alongside the Russians has died, South Korean intelligence reported Friday. “It has been confirmed, through an allied intelligence agency, that the North Korean soldier captured alive on December 26 has just succumbed to his worsening injuries,” the intelligence agency said in a statement.
The capture of a North Korean soldier was a first since Kyiv and the West reported the participation of Pyongyang troops in the conflict. This involvement of a regular foreign army constituted a major escalation of the invasion which was launched almost three years ago by Vladimir Putin and is entering a critical phase with the return in less than a month of Donald Trump to the White House.
On Friday evening, the Ukrainian president announced that it was not one but several wounded North Korean soldiers who died the same day in his country after being taken prisoner, Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Russia of not having offered to these soldiers who“minimum protection”.
“Several North Korean soldiers died today. Our soldiers managed to capture them. But they were very seriously injured and could not be saved,” he declared in his daily speech, denouncing “the madness of which dictatorships are capable”, who send soldiers to die “in battles in Europe”.
“They have a lot of losses. A lot. And we see that the Russian army and the North Korean supervisors are not at all interested in the survival of these Koreans, he denounced. Everything is done to make it impossible for us to capture Koreans. The Russians are sending them to attack with minimal protection.”
For the United States, the soldiers dispatched by Pyongyang are considered nothing more than cannon fodder. Washington assured Friday that “more than a thousand” soldiers deployed by Pyongyang to Russia to fight against Ukraine were killed or injured during assaults “hopeless” in the Kursk border region. “It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders view them as troops that can be sacrificed,” noted John Kirby, spokesperson for the American National Security Council.
No modern combat experience
According to Kyiv, 12,000 North Korean troops, including “around 500 officers and 3 generals”, are engaged in the Russian region of Kursk, of which the Ukrainian army has occupied several hundred square kilometers since August. Neither Russia nor North Korea have ever confirmed the presence of this contingent alongside the Russian army. Volodymyr Zelensky assured Monday that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or injured” since their engagement alongside Russia. Seoul for its part mentioned Monday 1,100 “killed or injured”. The South Korean general staff has also observed preparations which make it believe that North Korea is preparing to send new units to Russia, as reinforcements or to relieve those already fighting, in addition to drones.
A historic mutual defense treaty between Pyongyang and Moscow, signed in June, entered into force earlier this month. He plans “immediate military aid” in the event of armed aggression by a third country. Seoul believes that through the experience gained in combat against Ukrainian forces, North Korea is seeking to modernize its conventional warfare capabilities.
The spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), Yevgen Ierin, affirmed on Tuesday that “North Korean involvement in the fighting did not have a significant impact on the situation.” According to him, North Korean troops do not have any modern combat experience, particularly in the face of drones that have become omnipresent on the battlefield, and employ “more primitive tactics, from World War II or post-World War II.”
Updated this Saturday, December 28 at 8:15 a.m. with statements from Zelensky and Washington.
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