Typically, Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded and do everything to erase evidence of North Korea’s participation in the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that his troops had taken prisoner, in the Russian region of Kursk, two North Korean soldiers who were transferred to kyiv where they are being interrogated.
“These are two soldiers who, although injured, survived and were transported to kyiv where they are speaking with SBU investigators”the Ukrainian security services, Mr. Zelensky said on Telegram, accompanying his message with photos of the two suspected soldiers in custody.
Russia complicates captures
“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.
The leader accompanied his message with photos of the two suspected soldiers in custody. One of them has visible bandages around his hands, the other around his chin.
According to Volodymyr Zelensky, these prisoners receive “all necessary medical assistance”. He claimed to have ordered the SBU to provide press access to detainees: “The world needs to know what’s happening,” he indicated.
-No modern combat experience
This is not the first time that Ukraine has taken North Korean soldiers prisoner. In late December, a North Korean soldier captured by Ukrainian forces after being deployed to fight alongside the Russians died. The capture of this soldier was a first since Kyiv and the West reported the participation of troops from Pyongyang in the conflict.
An involvement of a regular foreign army which constitutes, for Ukraine, a major escalation of the invasion launched three years ago by Vladimir Putin.
Since then, numerous North Korean losses have been reported. “We see that the Russian army and the North Korean supervisors are not at all interested in the survival of these Koreans,” denounced Volodymyr Zelensky. “Everything is being done to make it impossible for us to capture Koreans. The Russians send them to attack with minimal protection.
According to Kyiv, 12,000 North Korean soldiers, including “around 500 officers and 3 generals”are engaged in the Russian region of Kursk. If neither Russia nor Korea have ever confirmed the presence of this contingent alongside the Russian army, Volodymyr Zelensky assures that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers were “killed or injured” since their engagement alongside Russia. For his part, Seoul evokes 1,100 “killed or injured”.
Although they are numerous alongside Russian soldiers, the spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence, Ivéguen Iérine, has so far affirmed that “the involvement of the North Koreans in the fighting has no significant impact on the situation”. According to him, North Korean troops do not have modern combat experience, particularly in the face of drones that have become omnipresent on the battlefields, and use “more primitive tactics, from the Second World War or the ‘post-World War II’.
