Ukraine says it captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk

Wounded soldiers taken to Kyiv for questioning by Ukrainian investigators in cooperation with South Korean intelligence.

Ukraine says it has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region and taken them to Kyiv, where investigators were questioning them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the two prisoners of war were “communicating” with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country’s domestic intelligence agency.

“Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Saturday.

Ukraine’s SBU said in a statement that one of the captured soldiers had no documents at all, while the other had been carrying a Russian military ID card in the name of a man from Tuva, a Russian region bordering Mongolia.

“The prisoners do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian, so communication with them takes place through Korean translators in cooperation with South Korean intelligence,” the statement said.

According to the SBU, one of the soldiers claimed he had been told he was going to Russia for training, rather than to fight against Ukraine.

The agency said both men were provided with medical care in line with the Geneva Conventions.

Ukraine did not provide evidence that the captured soldiers were from North Korea.

Kyiv has repeatedly said North Korean troops are fighting in the Kursk region, where it launched an incursion in August, claiming control over several hundred square kilometres of territory.

However, this is the first time that the country’s intelligence services said they have had the opportunity to question North Korean soldiers. While Ukraine had previously claimed to have captured North Korean soldiers in combat, it said they had been badly wounded and died shortly afterwards.

Last month, a senior Ukrainian military official claimed that some 200 North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk had been killed or wounded in battle.

The estimate of North Korean casualties came weeks after Ukraine announced that Pyongyang had sent 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers to Russia to help it in its almost three-year war against its much smaller neighbour.

The White House and Pentagon last month confirmed that the North Korean forces have been battling on the front lines in largely infantry positions.