Kyiv: Ukraine’s forces have captured two North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, the first claim of its kind by Kyiv since North Korea sent thousands of troops to shore up Moscow’s war effort on the other side of the world.
Zelenskyy made the comments days after Ukraine, facing a slow Russian onslaught in the east, began pressing new attacks in Kursk to retain ground captured in a lightning incursion in August — the first occupation of Russian territory since World War II.
Moscow’s counterattack 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, Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
He shared photos of two men resting on cots in a room with bars over the windows. Both wore bandages, one around his jaw and the other around both hands and wrists.
Zelenskyy 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.
Ukraine’s security service SBU on Saturday said one of the soldiers had no documents at all, while the other had been carrying a Russian military ID card in the name of a man from Tuva, a Russian region bordering Mongolia.
According to the 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 hundred North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk have been killed or wounded in battle.
Ukraine estimated that 10,000 to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia. The White House and Pentagon said the North Korean forces have been battling on the front lines in largely infantry positions. They have been fighting with Russian units and, in some cases, independently around Kursk.
Zelenskyy welcomes new US sanctions against Russia Zelenskyy spoke to US President Joe Biden following the announcement of a new US sanctions package on Russia’s critically important energy sector, according to Zelenskyy’s Telegram account.
The sanctions target more than 180 oil-carrying vessels that are suspected to be part of a shadow fleet utilised by the Kremlin to evade oil sanctions, as well as Russian energy majors, traders, oil field service firms and energy officials. Several of the vessels targeted are also suspected of shipping sanctioned Iranian oil, according to the Treasury Department.
“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,” Zelenskyy said, referencing two Russian energy giants blacklisted along with dozens of subsidiaries.
High number of Ukranian drones hints at improved arms industry Meanwhile in Russia, Ukrainian drones overnight slammed into apartment blocks in western Tambov province, blowing out windows and damaging balconies in two five-storey blocks, acting regional Gov. Yegveniy Pervyshov said. There were injuries, he said, without giving details.
Russia shot down 85 Ukrainian drones, mostly targeting the south and west, the Defence Ministry reported Saturday. At the same time, Russia attacked its neighbour with 74 drones overnight into Saturday, according to Ukraine’s air force.
The relatively high number of Ukrainian drones, as cited by Russian officials, appeared to hint at Kyiv’s efforts to ramp up domestic weapons production with the likely goal of inflicting damage comparable to that wrought by Moscow.
