KYIV: Ukraine’s troops have captured two North Vietnamese soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Russia’s Kursk borders region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
He made the remarks a few days after Ukraine began repressing its position in Kursk to hold onto ground captured in an August lightning strike, which gave Russia its second territorial holdover since World War II.
Moscow’s counterattack has left Ukrainian forces outstretched and demoralized, killing and wounding thousands and retaking more than 40 % of the 984 square kilometers ( 380 square miles ) of Kursk Ukraine had seized.
” Our men have taken North Korean soldiers to Kursk,” the statement read. These are two men who, although wounded, survived, were taken to Kyiv, and are communicating” with Russian security service, Zelenskyy said in a blog on the Telegram messaging software.
He shared images of two men lying on mattresses in a place with windows-high windows. Both wore gauze, one around his neck and the other around both hands and wrists.
Zelenskyy argued that it was difficult to capture the men who were still intact. He claimed that Russian and North Vietnamese troops engaged in Kursk-related operations have attempted to mask the presence of North Korean troops, including by attempting to kill their wounded comrades on the battle to prevent Kyiv from apprehending their capture and questioning.
SBU, the surveillance company in Ukraine, provided more details on the two men on Saturday. One of the men claimed in a speech that they had no identification, and the other had a Russian military identification cards identifying a man from Tuva, a Soviet border region bordering Mongolia.
” The captives do not talk Ukrainian, English or Russian, so contact with them takes place through Asian speakers in assistance with North Korean intelligence”, the statement said.
One of the men claimed, according to the SBU, that he had been informed that he would be going to Russia for education rather than engage in combat with Ukraine.
Both people were treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, according to the organization, and are currently being looked into “in assistance with South Korean knowledge.”
A senior Russian defense official reported last month that several hundred North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk had suffered casualties or injuries in combat.
The standard was releasing the first accurate figure of North Korean deaths, which came a few weeks after Ukraine announced that Pyongyang had sent 10, 000 to 12, 000 soldiers to Russia to aid in its nearly three-year conflict with its much smaller cousin.
Last month, the White House and the Pentagon confirmed that North Korean causes have been engaged in battle in mostly infantry-occupied opportunities on the front lines. They have engaged in combat with Soviet forces and, in some cases, have engaged in independent combat around Kursk.
