Ukraine’s forces have captured two North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian troops in Russia’s Kursk border region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
He made the comments days after Ukraine began pressing new attacks in Kursk to retain ground captured in a lightning incursion in August that resulted in the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II.
Moscow’s counterattack has left Ukrainian forces outstretched and demoralized, killing and wounding thousands and retaking more than 40% of the 984 square kilometers (380 square miles) of Kursk 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, Zelenskyy 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.
Zelenskyy 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 on Saturday provided more information on the two soldiers. In a statement, it said one 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.
“The prisoners do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian, so communication with them takes place through Korean translators in cooperation with South Korean intelligence,” the statement said.
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.
The agency said both men were provided with medical care in line with the Geneva Conventions, and are being investigated “in cooperation with South Korean intelligence.”
A senior Ukrainian military official said last month that a couple hundred North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk have been killed or wounded in battle.
The official was providing the first significant estimate of North Korean casualties, which came several weeks after Ukraine announced that Pyongyang had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in its almost 3-year war against its much smaller neighbor.
The White House and Pentagon last month confirmed that 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.