Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said forces operating in the Kursk region of Russia have captured two North Korean soldiers, marking the first time that Ukraine has captured alive soldiers from the isolated state,
CNN reports.
“Our soldiers have captured North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine,” Zelensky said Saturday in a statement on X, which include several images of the injured soldiers.
According to Ukrainian and Western assessments, some 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy several hundred square kilometers after staging a cross-border incursion in August last year.
Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said more than 1,000 North Korean forces had been killed or wounded in Kursk in the last week of December.
Zelensky said of the two Korean soldiers who had been captured: “This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
