It was on Saturday that Volodymyr Zelensky announced that two North Korean soldiers had been taken as prisoners of war.
“These are two soldiers who, despite being wounded, survived, were taken to Kiev and are communicating with SBU investigators,” the Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram, where he also published photos of the captured.
In the post, Zelensky also wrote that he had given instructions to the SBU to allow journalists to meet the North Koreans.
Later, the security service released a video in which a spokesperson says that one North Korean was captured on Thursday by Ukrainian special forces and the other by Ukrainian paratroopers, according to CNN.
The two soldiers speak neither English, Ukrainian nor Russian. Therefore, the Security Service of Ukraine has asked South Korea to help with interpretation.
Later, the Zelensky administration released video footage purported to show the actual capture in Kursk.
Trained in Russia
According to a source within South Korea’s intelligence service, one of the soldiers has told them that they were trained in Russia.
– He initially thought that he had been sent for training but realized, when he arrived in Russia, that he had been sent on a mission, the source states about the content of interrogations that Ukraine held with the soldiers.
The soldier also reportedly said that North Korean forces had suffered heavy losses in the operation, according to the source.
The SBU has also released a picture of a Russian military identity document said to have been carried by one of the soldiers. The document states the name of a person from the sub-republic of Tuva in Russia. The soldier reportedly said he received the document in Russia last fall. The second North Korean soldier had no documents on him, according to the security service.
Neither North Korea nor Russia have commented on the information about the captured soldiers.
See the released images from the capture in the clip.