SEOUL(South Korea): South Korea’s intelligence agency on Friday verified reports that Ukrainian special forces had captured a wounded North Korean soldier, marking the first known incident of its kind, Yonhap News Agency reported.
“Through real-time information sharing with a friendly nation’s intelligence organisation, (we) confirmed the capture of a wounded North Korean soldier and plans to thoroughly examine the subsequent development,” South Korea’s intelligence agency National Intelligence Service said in a brief release.
The confirmation by South Korea’s spy agency came after Ukraine’s military-focused news outlet Militarnyi reported on Thursday that the nation’s forces captured the North Korean soldier during operations in Russia’s western front-line region of Kursk, according to a report by Yonhap News Agency.
A few days back, the Ukrainian military had said that North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia were given fake military documents with Russian names and birthplaces, CNN reported.
The statement came amid claims from Ukraine that Russia is trying to not disclose the presence of foreign fighters in the conflict.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Ukraine’s special forces said that they had killed three North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region and seized their documents. The statement said 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,” referring to a Russian region in southern Siberia bordering Mongolia, according to CNN report.
The US, Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence estimates indicate that the number of North Korean soldiers in Russia are between 11,000 to 12,000, some of whom have already engaged in combat operations alongside Russian forces to assist in recovering parts of Kursk that were taken during the Ukrainian offensive in August, CNN reported.
On December 17, Ukraine’s special forces said that 50 North Korean soldiers were killed and 47 others were injured in three days while fighting alongside Russian soldiers in Kursk.
One Ukrainian unit reported that North Koreans, wearing different uniforms from the Russians, had launched infantry attacks using the “same tactics as 70 years ago,” in an apparent reference to the Korean War, according to CNN report. However, Russia and North Korea has not acknowledged the presence of North Korean soldiers in Russia.
Earlier in a statement shared on December 17 on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote, “Russians are trying… to literally burn the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in battle.” Alongside the statement, he shared a video purportedly showing Russian soldiers setting fire to the bodies of North Korean soldiers. (ANI)