Ukrainian authorities on Saturday announced the capture of two North Korean soldiers in Russia, saying they were the first captured alive since Pyongyang sent troops to assist Moscow in the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the two wounded soldiers were captured in Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been fighting to hold on to territory captured in a sudden cross-border incursion last summer.
Zelensky posted on multiple social media channels that the soldiers had received medical care in accordance with the requirements of the Geneva Convention and were taken to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, for interrogation.
Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service, the SBU, said one of the soldiers was arrested on Thursday. It did not provide details of where or when the second man was captured, but said they were the first North Koreans to be captured while fighting against Ukraine in Kursk.
According to the SBU, the interrogation was conducted through a Korean interpreter in coordination with South Korean intelligence services. South Korea’s embassy in Ukraine did not immediately respond to a request for comment. There was no immediate comment from Russia or North Korea.
Both Ukrainian intelligence agencies and Zelensky shared photos and videos of two soldiers, one with a bandage on his chin and the other with bandaged hands.
Under the rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war in the Geneva Conventions, governments are supposed to protect prisoners of war from “public curiosity,” a concept sometimes interpreted as not displaying prisoners of war in any public place.
Fierce fighting in Kursk has intensified as Russian troops try to defeat Ukrainian troops and push them back to the border. Russian forces, backed by more than 11,000 North Korean soldiers, have regained about half of the lost territory in the region.
But Ukraine still retains more than 150 square miles of land in Russia. The White House said North Korean troops suffered heavy casualties.
Last month, the Biden administration said more than 1,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or injured in a week of fighting with Ukrainian forces in Kursk, with some committing suicide rather than surrender.
