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

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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.