Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had captured North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region and were taken to Kyiv.

Le Monde with AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that investigators were questioning two wounded North Korean soldiers after they were captured in Russia’s Kursk region on Saturday, January 11.

“Our soldiers captured North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region. These are two soldiers who, although wounded, survived and were brought to Kyiv, and are talking to SBU investigators,” Zelensky wrote on social media, referring to Ukraine’s SBU security service.

Kyiv did not present direct evidence that the men are North Korean. Neither Russia nor North Korea has reacted to the claim.

The SBU said the men told interrogators they were experienced army soldiers, and one said he was sent to Russia for training, not to fight. It released a video showing the two men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw. A doctor at the detention center says the first man also had a broken leg.

Ukraine released no audio recording of the prisoners but said they were talking through Korean interpreters working “in cooperation” with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

‘World needs to know’

Russia and North Korea have boosted their military ties since Moscow’s invasion, though neither has confirmed that Pyongyang’s forces are fighting for Moscow in the Kursk region. Zelensky said last month that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” there, while Seoul put the figure at 10,000.

Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to reinforce Russia’s military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock incursion in August last year. Zelensky had said in late December that Ukraine had captured several seriously wounded North Korean soldiers who later died.

He said Saturday that it was difficult to capture North Koreans fighting because “Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded and do everything to prevent evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war against Ukraine.” He said he would provide media access to the prisoners of war because “the world needs to know what is happening.”

He also posted photos of two wounded men with Asian features in bunk beds but did not provide evidence that they were North Korean. One photo shows a Russian army ID card issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia.

Some reports have said Russia is hiding North Korean fighters by giving them fake IDs.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on X that the “first North Korean prisoners of war are now in Kyiv,” calling them “regular DPRK troops, not mercenaries.” “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang,” he wrote.

Source: lemonde.fr