The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskysaid on Sunday that kyiv is willing to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to its leader, Kim Jong Unif he can facilitate their exchange for Ukrainian soldiers captive in Russia.
“Apart from the first captured North Korean soldiers, there will undoubtedly be more. It is only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others,” Zelensky said on the social network X. Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukraine had taken two prisoners. North Koreans in the Russian Kursk region, is the first time Ukraine announces the capture alive of North Korean soldiers since they entered the war last fall.
According to Ukrainian and Western assessments, about 11,000 North Korean soldiersallies of Russia, have deployed to the Kursk region to support Moscow’s forces. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied its presence.
Zelensky has said that the Russian and North Korean military They had suffered great losses. Zelensky published a short video showing the interrogation of two men presented as North Korean soldiers. One of them appears lying on a bed with his hands bandaged and the other sitting with a bandage on his jaw. One of the men said through an interpreter that I didn’t know I was fighting Ukraine and that he had been told that he was on a training exercise.
He said he hid in a shelter during the offensive and was found a couple of days later. He said that if he was ordered to return to North Korea, he would do so, but that he was willing to stay in Ukraine if given the opportunity.
Reuters could not verify the video. “One of them (the soldiers) expressed his desire to stay in Ukraine, the other to return to Korea,” Zelensky said in a televised statement.
Zelensky said that for North Korean soldiers who did not wish to return home, there may be other options available and “those who express their desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean will be given that opportunity.” “. Zelensky did not specify.
Apparently, North Korean authorities asked their troops to commit suicide by immolating himself to evade capture, said Lee Seong-kweun, a lawmaker on the intelligence committee of the South Korean Parliament, based on information from the National Intelligence Service (NIS). The captured North Korean soldiers had shown no intention of coming to South Korea, although South Korea would cooperate with Ukraine if they had such a request, Yonhap news agency also reported, citing the NIS.
