Ukraine says it captured two North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia

11 January 2025, 16:34

Ukraine has estimated that between 10,000 and 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia.

Ukraine’s forces have captured two North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, the first claim of its kind by Kyiv since North Korea sent thousands of troops to shore up Moscow’s war effort on the other side of the world.

Mr Zelensky made the comments days after Ukraine, facing a slow Russian onslaught in the east, began pressing new attacks in Kursk to retain ground captured in a lightning incursion in August — the first occupation of Russian territory since the Second World War.

Our soldiers have captured North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine.

This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North… pic.twitter.com/5J0hqbarP6

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 11, 2025

Moscow’s counterattack has left Ukrainian forces outstretched and demoralised, killing and wounding thousands and retaking more than 40% of the 984 square kilometres of Kursk that Ukraine had seized.

“Our soldiers have captured North Korean soldiers in Kursk. These are two soldiers who, although wounded, survived, were taken to Kyiv, and are communicating” with Ukrainian security services, Mr Zelensky said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

He shared photos of two men resting on cots in a room with bars over the windows. Both wore bandages, one around his jaw and the other around both hands and wrists.

Mr Zelensky said capturing the soldiers alive was “not easy”.

He asserted that Russian and North Korean forces fighting in Kursk have tried to conceal the presence of North Korean soldiers, including by killing wounded comrades on the battlefield to avoid their capture and interrogation by Kyiv.

Ukraine’s security service SBU said one of the soldiers had no documents at all, while the other had been carrying a Russian military ID card in the name of a man from Tuva, a Russian region bordering Mongolia.

According to the SBU, one of the soldiers claimed he had been told he was going to Russia for training, rather than to fight against Ukraine.

He said his combat unit, made up of North Koreans, only received one week of training alongside Russian troops before being sent to the front.

A senior Ukrainian military official said last month that a couple of hundred of North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk have been killed or wounded in battle.

Ukraine estimated that 10,000 to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia.

The White House and Pentagon said the North Korean forces have been battling on the front lines in largely infantry positions.

They have been fighting with Russian units and, in some cases, independently around Kursk.

By Press Association