Ukraine president says 2 North Korean troopers combating for Russia had been captured
Ukraine’s forces have captured two North Korean troopers combating alongside Russian troops in Russia’s Kursk border area, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Saturday.
He made the feedback days after Ukraine started urgent new assaults in Kursk to retain floor captured in a lightning incursion in August that resulted within the first occupation of Russian territory since World Warfare II.
Moscow’s counterattack has left Ukrainian forces outstretched and demoralized, killing and wounding 1000’s and retaking greater than 40% of the 984 sq. kilometers (380 sq. miles) of Kursk Ukraine had seized.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Social Media / Handout/Anadolu by way of Getty Pictures
“Our troopers have captured North Korean troopers in Kursk. These are two troopers who, though wounded, survived, had been taken to Kyiv, and are speaking” with Ukrainian safety companies, Zelenskyy stated in a put up on the Telegram messaging app.
He shared pictures of two males resting on cots in a room with bars over the home windows. Each wore bandages, one round his jaw and the opposite round each arms and wrists.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Social Media / Handout/Anadolu by way of Getty Pictures
Zelenskyy stated capturing the troopers alive was “not simple.” He asserted that Russian and North Korean forces combating in Kursk have tried to hide the presence of North Korean troopers, together with by killing wounded comrades on the battlefield to keep away from their seize and interrogation by Kyiv.
Ukraine’s safety service SBU on Saturday offered extra data on the 2 troopers. In a press release, it stated one had no paperwork in any respect, whereas the opposite had been carrying a Russian navy ID card within the title of a person from Tuva, a Russian area bordering Mongolia.
“The prisoners don’t converse Ukrainian, English or Russian, so communication with them takes place via Korean translators in cooperation with South Korean intelligence,” the assertion stated.
In response to the SBU, one of many troopers claimed he had been instructed he was going to Russia for coaching, fairly than to struggle towards Ukraine.
Liubov Yemets/Gwara Media/International Pictures Ukraine by way of Getty Pictures
The company stated each males had been supplied with medical care in keeping with the Geneva Conventions, and are being investigated “in cooperation with South Korean intelligence.”
A senior Ukrainian navy official stated final month that a few hundred North Korean troops combating alongside Russian forces in Kursk have been killed or wounded in battle.
The official was offering the primary vital estimate of North Korean casualties, which got here a number of weeks after Ukraine introduced that Pyongyang had despatched 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to assist it in its virtually 3-year struggle towards its a lot smaller neighbor.
The White Home and Pentagon final month confirmed that the North Korean forces have been battling on the entrance traces in largely infantry positions. They’ve been combating with Russian models and, in some circumstances, independently round Kursk.
