By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Two injured North Korean soldiers allegedly providing support for Russia in its war with Ukraine have been captured as prisoners of war by Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast, a Russian territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Saturday.
He has repeatedly alleged that North Korea is backing Russia in the war that broke out in 2022, including the deployment of its soldiers, an allegation both nations have denied.
The two men are receiving “necessary medical assistance” and are in the custody of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kyiv, Zelensky stated.
The Ukrainian leader expressed gratitude to Ukrainian paratroopers and soldiers from the Special Operation Forces for capturing the North Koreans.
He added that “this was not an easy task,” claiming that Russian and North Korean soldiers usually execute wounded North Koreans “to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian intelligence service said in a statement that the prisoners of war were captured on 9 January and were “provided with all the necessary medical care as stipulated by the Geneva Convention” and taken to Kyiv immediately after.
“They are being held in appropriate conditions that meet the requirements of international law,” the intelligence service’s statement read.
The intelligence service said the prisoners do not speak Ukrainian, English, or Russian, “so communication with them is carried out through interpreters of Korean, in cooperation with South Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service).”
In a statement posted on Telegram and X, Zelensky said the soldiers were “talking to SBU investigators” and that he had instructed the Security Service of Ukraine to grant journalists access to them.
“The world needs to know the truth about what is occurring,” he added.
Zelensky also posted four photographs alongside his statement. Two showed wounded men, and one of the photos displayed a red Russian military card.
The intelligence service said that when the prisoners were captured, one of the soldiers had a Russian military ID card issued in the name of another person with registration in the Tuva Republic. The other had no documents at all.
The intelligence service said that during interrogation, the soldier with the ID card told security personnel that he had been issued the document in Russia during autumn 2024.
He is alleged to have stated that at that time, some of North Korea’s combat units had one-week interoperability training in Russia.
“It is noteworthy that the prisoner… emphasises that he was allegedly going for training, not to fight a war against Ukraine,” the SBU statement said.
The intelligence service reported that he said he was born in 2005 and had been serving North Korea as a rifleman since 2021.
A second image shared by Zelensky showed a reported prisoner of war with bandages around his hands.
The second prisoner is reported to have given some of his answers in writing because he had an injured jaw, according to the SBU. The intelligence service said it believed he was born in 1999 and had been serving North Korea as a scout sniper since 2016.
Zelensky’s office said in a statement that the Russians “are trying to hide the fact that these are soldiers from North Korea by giving them documents claiming they are from Tuva or other territories under Moscow’s control.”
“But these people are actually Koreans; they are from North Korea,” the statement from the president’s office said.
