Ukraine captures North Korean soldier in Russia, says Seoul

Ukrainian forces have captured a wounded North Korean soldier who was sent to support the Russian war effort, South Korea’s spy agency confirmed on Friday.

The soldier is believed to be the first North Korean prisoner of war since December, when Pyongyang sent troops to help Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The confirmation comes after a photo showing the injured soldier was published in the Telegraph.

North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to help Russia, according to Kyiv and Seoul – although Moscow and Pyongyang have neither confirmed nor denied their presence.

“This is the first in a series of kidnappings and murders,” Yang Uk, a researcher at the Asia Institute for Policy Studies, told the BBC. “For the Ukrainian people, it is very beneficial to capture North Korean soldiers and try to exchange them with Russians for Ukrainian prisoners of war.”

The latest images from the Russia-Ukraine war confirmed the assumption that “North Korean soldiers will be sent in large numbers to be destroyed by the Russian command,” Yang said.

He added, however, that “it will be difficult to convince their country of North Korea”.

Ukraine’s military says North Korean soldiers have been given fake Russian IDs, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that Russian soldiers had been seen burning the faces of North Koreans who died in the war – allegedly hiding their information.

More than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded while fighting in Russia’s Kursk region, Zelenskyy said on Monday.

He added that cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang increases the “risk of destabilization” around the Korean peninsula.

Russia launched a major war in Ukraine in February 2022. The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia is a sign of growing cooperation between the two pariah countries.

The development, which comes as North Korea escalates tensions with South Korea, has raised concerns in the West. China, a longtime ally of both sides, is no exception keeping a careful eye on friendship.

Additional reporting by Jake Kwon