Ukraine has captured two injured North Korean soldiers from the battlefield in Russia’s Kursk region and transferred them to Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday.
“Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, alongside a series of photos of the prisoners.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service confirmed the capture in a phone interview Sunday after it aided in questioning the soldiers with translation.
A North Korean soldier captured by Ukraine in December died from his injuries, but this is the first time Ukraine has detained soldiers fit for questioning since Pyongyang deployed an estimated 11,000 soldiers to support Russia late last year, according to the United States and its allies.
Neither Russia nor North Korea have publicly acknowledged the troop deployment.
“As with all prisoners of war, these two North Korean soldiers are receiving the necessary medical assistance,” Zelenskyy said, adding that their capture “was not an easy task” and noting the claim that Russian and North Korean soldiers "usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine.”
According to South Korea's intelligence service, one of the soldiers revealed during questioning that he had arrived in Russia in November and undertook a week of military training from Russian forces before he was deployed to the battlefield.
The soldier believed he was being sent for training and learned about the deployment only upon arrival in Russia, the agency said, adding that the soldier claimed there were significant troop losses during combat.
Zelenskyy's post showed a man with both arms bandaged and a striped sweater pulled over his shoulders. Another man is pictured with swollen lips and a bandage wrapped around his head.
Two other images showed the cover and inside pages of a Russian document.
Ukraine's military warned last month that Russia was trying to "conceal the presence of North Korean military personnel by issuing them false documents."
It said that military cards for North Koreans killed in the conflicts were "missing all the stamps and photographs" and that the signatures on the documents are in Korean, which “indicates the real origin of these soldiers.”
In October, South Korean intelligence services said that North Korean special forces soldiers received Russian military uniforms and Russian-made weapons, as well as fake identification documents to make it look as if they came from Russia’s Far East, where people can resemble North Koreans.
Zelenskyy said he had instructed Ukraine's security service to allow journalists access to the prisoners.
“The world needs to know the truth about what is happening,” he said.
Zelenskyy said last week that 4,000 North Korean soldiers have died or been wounded in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have launched a cross-border incursion since August.
The same month, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said some North Korean soldiers had taken their own lives rather than surrender to Ukrainian forces.
The suicides, he said, were most “likely out of fear of reprisal against their families in North Korea in the event that they’re captured.”