By Max Hunder
(Reuters) – Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday, the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last autumn.
North Korean regular troops entered the war on Russia’s side in October, according to Kyiv and its western allies, who initially estimated their numbers at 10,000 or more.
In a post on X, Zelenskiy said that the soldiers had been brought to Kyiv and were communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine, the country’s domestic intelligence agency.
“As with all prisoners of war, these two North Korean soldiers are receiving the necessary medical assistance,” Zelenskiy said. He said that journalists would be given access to speak to them.
Kyiv says that North Korean troops are fighting in the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an incursion in August. Kyiv says it still controls several hundred square kilometres of territory there.
Pyongyang has also been supplying Russia with vast quantities of artillery shells, according to Kyiv and its western allies.
Ukraine had previously said it captured North Korean soldiers in combat, but that they had been badly wounded and died shortly afterward.
(Reporting by Max Hunder in London, additional reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Potter and Conor Humphries)
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