South Korea’s intelligence agency confirmed reports that Ukrainian special forces captured a wounded North Korean soldier
Seoul: According to Yonhap News service, South Korea’s intelligence service confirmed on Friday that Ukrainian special forces had apprehended a wounded North Korean soldier, the first such instance.
In a brief statement, South Korea’s intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Service, stated, “We confirmed the capture of a wounded North Korean soldier through real-time information sharing with a friendly nation’s intelligence organization and plan to thoroughly examine the subsequent development.”
After Ukraine’s military-focused news site Militarnyi announced on Thursday that the country’s troops had arrested the North Korean soldier during operations in Russia’s western front-line area of Kursk, according to a report by Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s intelligence agency confirmed the information.
According to CNN, the Ukrainian military said a few days ago that North Korean troops serving for Russia were given fake military IDs with Russian names and birthplaces.
The announcement coincided with allegations from Ukraine that Russia is attempting to conceal the existence of foreign combatants in the war.
Ukraine’s special forces said in a statement on Sunday that they had captured the papers of three North Korean troops and killed them in the Kursk area of Russia. According to a CNN report, the statement claimed that their military identification documents “lack all the stamps and photos, the patronymic names are given in the Russian manner, and the place of birth is signed as the Republic of Tuva,” which is a region of southern Siberia that borders Mongolia.
Between 11,000 and 12,000 North Korean soldiers are believed to be in Russia, according to estimates from US, Ukrainian, and South Korean intelligence. Some of these soldiers have already participated in combat operations alongside Russian forces to help retake areas of Kursk that were captured during the Ukrainian offensive in August, CNN reported.
50 North Korean troops were killed and 47 others wounded in three days of battle with Russian soldiers in Kursk, according to Ukraine’s special forces on December 17.
According to a CNN story, one Ukrainian battalion said that North Koreans had used “the same tactics as 70 years ago,” presumably alluding to the Korean War, to conduct infantry assaults while donning different uniforms than the Russians. Nonetheless, neither North Korea nor Russia has admitted that North Korean forces are present in Russia.
Previous to this, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed in a statement posted on X on December 17 that “Russians are trying… to literally burn the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in battle.” He posted a video allegedly depicting Russian forces burning North Korean soldiers’ corpses with the statement.
