The Kremlin said Monday that it could not comment on Kyiv's claim that it captured North Korean soldiers fighting alongside the Russian military, coming a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to exchange them for Ukrainian POWs, The Moscow Times reports.
Moscow has neither denied nor confirmed reports that thousands of North Korean soldiers were sent to the southwestern Kursk region to help Russia fight off a Ukrainian incursion.
"We cannot comment [on this statement] in any way, we do not know what is true there," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked to comment on Zelensky's offer to swap the North Korean soldiers for Ukrainian POWs.
"We continue to discuss the possibility of exchanges. We are interested in this," Peskov added. "But the life of each of our military prisoners is important to us. This work will continue."
Ukrainian authorities over the weekend released videos of what they said were two North Korean soldiers being interrogated after their capture. South Korean intelligence officials later confirmed the soldiers' capture.
Souel said earlier on Monday that around 300 North Korean troops have been killed and some 2,700 others wounded while fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
