President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the capture of two wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region of western Russia, saying they were the first to be taken alive since Pyongyang sent troops to assist Moscow’s war effort.
Zelensky expressed gratitude to Ukrainian paratroopers and Special Operation Forces for successfully capturing the men, emphasizing the difficulty of the operation. He noted that Russian and North Korean soldiers typically execute wounded North Koreans to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the prisoners were captured on January 9 and immediately received the necessary medical care in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
They were then transported to Kyiv, where they are being held in conditions that meet international legal standards. The prisoners do not speak Ukrainian, English, or Russian, so communication is being facilitated through interpreters provided by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). In a statement posted on Telegram and X, Zelensky said the prisoners were “talking to SBU investigators” and instructed the Security Service to grant journalists access to them, stating, "The world needs to know the truth about what is happening." Zelensky also shared four photographs, including two showing the wounded prisoners and one of a Russian military ID card.
The card listed a place of birth in Turan, Tuva Republic, near Mongolia. The intelligence service revealed that one of the prisoners carried a Russian military ID card, issued in the name of another individual from Tuva. During questioning, the soldier claimed that he had received the ID in Russia in the autumn of 2024. He said North Korean combat units had participated in interoperability training and emphasized that he had been sent for training, not to fight against Ukraine.
The soldier also stated that he was born in 2005 and had served as a rifleman for North Korea since 2021. The second prisoner, whose jaw was reportedly injured, provided some of his responses in writing. He is believed to have been born in 1999 and served as a scout sniper for North Korea since 2016. In accordance with the Geneva Convention, prisoners must be questioned in a language they understand, and they are to be protected from public curiosity.
Zelensky's office later added that the Russians were attempting to obscure the soldiers’ North Korean identity by providing them with documents indicating they were from Tuva or other territories controlled by Moscow. However, the president's office affirmed that the prisoners were indeed North Korean.
