"Jan 11 (Reuters) - Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday, the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into last autumn.
According to Kyiv and its western allies, the North Korean soldiers entered the war on Russia's side in October, with initial estimates of their numbers ranging at 10,000 or more.
Zelenskiy stated in a post on X that the soldiers had been brought to Kyiv and were in communication with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country's domestic intelligence agency.
"As with all prisoners of war, these two North Korean soldiers are receiving the necessary medical assistance," Zelenskiy said. He indicated that journalists would be allowed to speak to them.
Kyiv maintains that North Korean troops are involved in the fighting in the Kursk region, which Ukraine had controlled up until August. The Ukrainian government claims to retain control of several hundred square kilometers of territory in the area.
According to Kyiv and its western allies, Pyongyang has been supplying Russia with significant numbers of artillery shells.
Russia has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean troops in Kursk, and there has been no immediate response from Moscow or Pyongyang to the latest report.
Ukraine had previously reported capturing North Korean soldiers in combat, but those individuals had sustained severe injuries and had soon passed away.
In a subsequent video address, Zelenskiy disclosed that the soldiers had been captured by Ukraine's special forces working jointly with paratroopers.
Footage released by the special forces, captured via a drone, purportedly shows a portion of the operation. The video displayed five individuals in ghillie suits within a wooded area, although specifics were challenging to discern.
An SBU video clip depicted the two captured soldiers. One of them had his jaw wrapped due to a visible injury, while the other was seen drinking through a straw.
A doctor featured in the SBU video, whose identity was undisclosed and face obscured, mentioned that one soldier had a facial injury requiring dental treatment, and the other soldier had an exposed wound and a fracture in his lower leg.
The SBU conveyed that the North Korean soldiers had been relocated to Kyiv for interrogation and that, since they didn't understand Ukrainian, Russian, or English, the questioning was being conducted in Korean with assistance from South Korea's NIS intelligence agency.
The SBU reported that one of the soldiers had been seized with a Russian military document bearing another person's name registered in Russia, while the other soldier lacked any documents.
Stating the soldiers' years of birth as 2005 and 1999, the SBU mentioned that they had served in the North Korean armed forces since 2021 and 2016 respectively.
The SBU assured that the two captives were being held in compliance with international law and detailed that a criminal investigation was underway to ascertain if the soldiers had violated Ukraine's law prohibiting the planning or engagement in acts of war."