Ukraine Says It Has Captured 2 North Korean Soldiers Who Fought for Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives to a meeting of the United Nations Security Council at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 24, 2024. Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Ukrainian forces have captured two North Korean soldiers who were fighting on behalf of Russia in the Kursk region, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Delivering his daily address on Jan. 11, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian special operations troops facilitated the successful capture mission inside the western Russian border region, where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been fighting since August.

For months, Ukrainian officials have raised concerns about North Korea lending its troops to the Russian war effort. In recent weeks, reports have emerged that these North Korean forces are now assisting Moscow in its efforts to reassert control over a swath of Ukrainian-held territory in the Kursk region.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have confirmed the North Korean troop deployment to the embattled Kursk region, but the apparent capture of these two soldiers would solidify Ukraine’s claims of a growing alliance between the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

In a Jan. 11 statement, Ukraine’s SBU intelligence and security service said the successful capture mission took place on Jan. 9, and the prisoners of war now provide “indisputable evidence of the DPRK’s participation in Russia’s war against our country.”

Zelenskyy said it was not an easy task to bring the two North Koreans in alive. The Ukrainian president had previously stated, on Dec. 27, that Ukrainian forces had tried to bring in wounded North Korean troops but those soldiers had succumbed to their battlefield injuries.

This time, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces have succeeded in transporting the suspected North Koreans back to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. He said the captured soldiers are receiving medical care and are communicating with SBU investigators.

“North Korean soldiers and Russians keep trying to finish off their wounded Koreans—specifically to prevent them from being captured,” Zelenskyy said on Jan. 11.

Zelenskyy said that Russia has tried to provide false documents to conceal the identities of North Korean troops fighting on Russia’s behalf.

The SBU said the captured soldiers do not speak English, Ukrainian, or Russian. They said interrogation efforts are proceeding with Korean translators, provided in partnership with South Korean intelligence.

Ukraine’s intelligence service said they determined that one of the captured soldiers was born in 1999 and the other was born in 2005.

The younger of the pair said he initially believed that he was being sent to Russia for training, not to take part in the ongoing war. The older soldier reportedly confirmed this, while providing some of his answers to questions in writing because of a jaw injury.

U.S. officials have assessed that North Korean forces have already sustained heavy casualties in the first few weeks of fighting for Russia. In remarks while visiting South Korea this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shared an assessment that more than 1,000 North Korean troops had been wounded or killed in the last week of December 2024 alone.