Two North Korean soldiers, who were fighting alongside Russian troops in Russia’s Kursk border region, are in Ukrainian custody, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says.
He made the comments days after Ukraine began pressing new attacks in Kursk to retain ground captured in a lightning incursion in August that resulted in the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II.
Moscow’s counter-attack has left Ukrainian forces outstretched and demoralised, killing and wounding thousands and retaking more than 40 per cent of the 984 square kilometres of Kursk Ukraine had seized.
“Our soldiers have captured North Korean soldiers in Kursk. These are two soldiers who, although wounded, survived, were taken to Kyiv, and are communicating” with Ukrainian security services, Zelenskiy said.
He shared photos of two men, both wearing bandages, in a room with bars over the windows.
Zelenskiy said capturing the soldiers alive was “not easy”.
He asserted that Russian and North Korean forces fighting in Kursk have tried to conceal the presence of North Korean soldiers, including by killing wounded comrades on the battlefield to avoid their capture and interrogation by Kyiv.
According to Ukraine's security service SBU, one of the soldiers claimed he had been told he was going to Russia for training, rather than to fight against Ukraine.
He said his combat unit, made up of North Koreans, only received one week of training alongside Russian troops before being sent to the front.
A senior Ukrainian military official said last month that a couple of hundred North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk have been killed or wounded in battle.
The official was providing the first significant estimate of North Korean casualties, which came several weeks after Ukraine announced that Pyongyang had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in its almost three-year war against its much smaller neighbour.
Meanwhile, Russia's defence ministry says the army has gained control of the settlement of Shevchenko, near the logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key Russian target in its advance through the eastern Donetsk region.
Ukraine's military made no mention of the village in its latest account of front-line activity, but said Russia had launched more than 50 attacks against its forces' positions near Pokrovsk in the past 24 hours.
The governor of the part of Donetsk region held by Ukrainian forces, Vadym Filashkin, said one resident was killed and four injured when a village north of Pokrovsk came under Russian shelling.
Russia's military announced the capture of Kurakhove, another logistics centre south of Pokrovsk, earlier this week.
Ukraine has yet to acknowledge the loss of the town, but the popular Ukrainian blog DeepState, which collates information from open sources, said the town was in Russian hands.
The Ukraine leader has spoken to US President Joe Biden following the announcement of a new US sanctions package on Russia's critically important energy sector, according to Zelenskiy's Telegram account.
The sanctions target more than 180 oil-carrying vessels that are suspected to be part of a shadow fleet used by the Kremlin to evade oil sanctions, as well as Russian energy majors, traders, oil field service firms and energy officials.
“It is very important that America has now struck at Russia’s shadow tanker fleet and at companies such as Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz, which accumulate money for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin personally. He must feel the price of his war, losing from his wallets,” Zelenskiy said, referencing two Russian energy giants blacklisted along with dozens of subsidiaries.
In response to the sanctions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that “Washington’s hostile actions will not go unanswered”.
