Two North Korean soldiers captured in Kursk region brought to Kyiv

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy informs.

“Our servicemen captured the North Korean military in the Kursk region. These are two wounded soldiers who survived and were brought to Kyiv and are talking to SBU investigators,” he said.

According to the president, this task was not easy, because usually Russians and other North Korean military personnel finish off their wounded. They do everything to prevent evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war against Ukraine.

“I am grateful to our soldiers of the Tactical Group No. 84 of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and our paratroopers who captured these two people,” Zelenskyy added.

He noted that, like all prisoners, these two North Korean soldiers are being provided with the necessary medical care.

Zelenskyy instructed the Security Service of Ukraine to provide journalists with access to these prisoners: “The world needs to know what is happening,” he emphasized.

What the Security Service of Ukraine says

The Security Service of Ukraine, which documents and investigates relevant crimes, has received indisputable evidence of the DPRK's participation in Russia's war against Ukraine, the special service said.

On 9 January 2025, one of the North Korean servicemen was captured by soldiers of the 84th Special Forces tactical group, and the other by paratroopers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The SBU assured that immediately after being captured, the foreigners were provided with all the necessary medical care, as provided for by the Geneva Convention.

In Kyiv, prisoners are held in proper conditions that meet the requirements of international law.

‘The captives do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian, so communication with them takes place through Korean interpreters in cooperation with South Korea's intelligence. At the time of his capture, one of the foreigners had a Russian military ID card issued in the name of another person registered in the Republic of Tuva, Russia. The other had no documents at all,’ the SBU said.

During the interrogation, the DPRK soldier who was found to have the ID card told the Ukrainian special service that he had been issued the document in Russia in the autumn of 2024. At that time, he said, some of North Korea's military units had been training with Russian military groups for one week.

He himself stated that he was born in 2005, served as a rifleman, and had been serving in North Korea since 2021. The SBU noted that the prisoner, like the Russian military at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, stressed that he was going to training, not to war against Ukraine.

• Operators with the 8th Regiment of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces have killed 13 North Korean servicemen in Russia's Kursk region.