Ukraine’s capture of two North Korean soldiers on the battlefield has provided a rare glimpse into their role and Pyongyang’s participation in the Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
The two soldiers were taken prisoner in Kursk oblast, the scene of intense fighting since Ukraine launched a cross-border raid five months ago. Video showed special forces soldiers carrying one of the wounded North Koreans across a snowy forest.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would give journalists access to the pair, so the world “can learn the truth about what is happening”.
The prisoners have been transported to Kyiv and given appropriate “medical treatment” for their injuries, Zelenskyy said. He praised the paratroopers and tactical group that retrieved them, saying: “This was not an easy task.”
Russian forces and North Korean military personnel had previously executed wounded North Korean soldiers in order to “erase” any trace of Pyongyang’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, he claimed.
Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency has been questioning the soldiers, who were given fake Russian names and military documents. The pair speak no foreign languages. South Korea’s NIS intelligence service has been assisting, the SBU said.
The soldiers are the first captive North Koreans to survive. They represent a PR opportunity for Kyiv, during a precarious moment for Ukraine as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Zelenskyy said he was ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to Pyongyang in exchange for the return of Ukrainian PoWs held in Russia.
The president is keen to emphasise that Ukraine is fighting an unprecedented coalition of malign autocratic states. One is North Korea, which has supplied Moscow with short-range ballistic missiles, artillery shells and – since last November – about 10,000 elite troops.
Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has acknowledged that North Koreans have been deployed to fight against Ukraine.
“There should be no doubt left in the world that the Russian army is dependent on military assistance from North Korea,” said Zelenskyy. Last month he said that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” fighting for Russia. Seoul put the figure at 1,000.
Russia has also deepened its cooperation with Iran. Tehran provides kamikaze drones used in nightly attacks against Ukrainian towns and cities. China does not contribute direct military aid but is a key diplomatic ally and delivers micro-electronic components used extensively in Russian weapons systems.
On Saturday, the SBU released video footage and photographs showing the two North Korean men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands, the other with a bandaged jaw. There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, wrote on social media: “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”
The soldiers had reportedly told the SBU they were experienced fighters. One said he had been sent to Russia for training, not to fight. One had no identity documents, while the other was in possession of a Russian military ID card said to have been “issued in the name of another person”, a 26-year-old from Russia’s Tuva region, which borders Mongolia.
According to the SBU he was a rifleman who was born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021. The other wrote his answers due to his injured jaw, stating that he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper.
South Korea’s intelligence agency, NIS, confirmed Ukraine’s account, adding that one of the soldiers had said North Korean forces had suffered “significant losses during battle”. One of the men said he had gone without food or water for up to five days before his capture.
One of the men said he wanted to return to North Korea. The other said he would do what he was told but, if given the chance, wanted to live in Ukraine.
Russia, meanwhile, reported that its military had advanced to within 3km of the strategically important town of Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk province and had seized a village south of the town. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces had repelled 46 out of 56 attacks on about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector.
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On Saturday, the Russian news agency Ria reported for the first time from the Ukrainian town of Kurakhove, a logistics centre south of Pokrovsk. Russian military said last week that it had captured the town, the scene of intense fighting. Ukrainian combat units recently pulled out of their last stronghold in Kurakhova, a thermal power plant.
Ukraine’s military made gains in the Kursk border region, according to reports by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which said geolocated videos showed Ukrainian soldiers had advanced to just north of the village of Pogrebki.
On Sunday, Germany’s chancellor said it was “no bad news” that Trump hoped to arrange a meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in an effort, according to the incoming US president, to “get that war over with”.
However, Olaf Scholz stressed that Ukraine’s sovereignty should not be called into question. Kyiv has rejected any deal that forces it to cede territory to Russia.
Referring to his own telephone conversation with Putin last month, for which he received much criticism, Scholz told the broadcaster ARD: “The point will come when real conversations have to be had.”
Germany, the second largest contributor to Ukraine’s war effort after the US, would continue to support Ukraine, he said, “but at the same time the killing has to stop at some point.”
He said it was necessary to “find a way out of this war, without a dictated peace in which the Ukrainians have no say”.
Early on Sunday, a Russian oil tanker that had run adrift in the Baltic Sea north of the German island of Rügen after suffering a blackout when its electricity supply failed, was manoeuvred safely into the port of Sassnitz by tug boats.
The tanker, Eventim, containing an estimated 99,000 tons of oil, is believed to be part of an extensive operation by Moscow to try to circumnavigate sanctions, for which dilapidated, unseaworthy ships are often used.
The 274-metre-long vessel with 24 crew members has effectively been impounded by authorities until a decision is made as to how to deal with it.
