Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Saturday that his country has taken two wounded North Korean soldiers from the Kursk region of Russia and taken them to Kyiv.
Along with a number of images of the detainees, Zelenskyy stated on X that two troops, despite their injuries, survived and were taken to Kyiv, where they are currently in contact with the Ukrainian Security Service.
The U.S. and its allies claim that Pyongyang deployed an estimated 11,000 soldiers to back Russia late last year, marking the first time Ukraine has claimed to have captured North Korean troops. The force deployment has not been formally recognized by North Korea or Russia.
Zelenskyy said that these two North Korean soldiers are getting the medical care they need, as is the case with all prisoners of war. He added that it was not an easy task to capture them and that North Korean and Russian soldiers “usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy shared a picture of a man wearing a striped sweater pulled over his shoulders and both of his arms bandaged. Another image shows a man with a bandage over his head and swollen lips.
A Russian document’s cover and internal pages were displayed in two additional pictures.
In December, the Ukrainian military issued a warning, claiming that Russia was attempting to “conceal the presence of North Korean military personnel by issuing them false documents.”
According to the report, military cards belonging to North Koreans who were killed in the battles were “missing all the stamps and photographs,” and the documents’ Korean signatures revealed the troops’ true nationality.
South Korean intelligence services said in October that North Korean special forces members were given Russian-made weaponry and military outfits, along with forged identification documents to make them appear to be from Russia’s Far East, where individuals can look like North Koreans.
Zelensky claimed to have given the Ukrainian security service instructions to let reporters visit the detainees.
He stated that the world must be aware of the reality of what is taking place.
In the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have been conducting a cross-border assault since August, Zelenskyy stated last week that 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or injured.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said that several North Korean soldiers had committed suicide rather than give themselves up to Ukrainian forces that same month.
He claimed that these suicides were probably motivated by a fear of retaliation against their North Korean relatives should they be apprehended.