Ukrainian Military Capture North Koreans for the First Time, One of Them with Russian Documents
The Ukrainian military has captured two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region. One of them was found to have a Russian military ID issued in someone else's name. This was reported by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on social media.
According to Zelenskyy, the operation was complicated, as Russians and North Koreans usually kill their wounded to hide evidence of North Korea's involvement in the war. The prisoners were wounded but survived and were taken to Kyiv, where they are cooperating with SBU investigators. The President added that the prisoners are being provided with the necessary medical care and instructed to ensure that journalists have access to them to tell the world about these events.
The SBU stated that it has indisputable evidence of the DPRK military's participation in Russia's war against Ukraine. The prisoners were captured on 9 January and are being held in proper conditions that comply with international law. Communication with them takes place through Korean interpreters in cooperation with South Korean intelligence, as they do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian.
One of the detainees was found to have a Russian military ID issued in the name of a person from the Republic of Tyva. He stated that he had received this document in autumn 2024 in Russia, where North Korean units had been conducting joint exercises with Russians for a week. The soldier said that he was born in 2005 and had served in North Korea as a rifleman since 2021. According to him, he believed he was going for training, not to fight a war against Ukraine.
The testimony was confirmed by another prisoner, born in 1999, who had served as a sniper in the DPRK since 2016. Due to an injured jaw, he gave some of his answers in writing.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha stressed the importance of this event, saying that regular DPRK troops, not mercenaries, were involved in the war against the European country. He called for increased international pressure on the regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang, stressing the interconnectedness of the security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.