Ukraine is ready to exchange captured North Korean soldiers in exchange for Ukrainian soldiers held in Russian captivity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday. A day earlier, he reported that Ukrainian forces had captured two North Korean soldiers fighting in the Kursk Oblast in Russia.
“After the first captured North Korean soldiers, there will undoubtedly be others. It is only a matter of time. And no one in the world should have any doubts that the Russian army is dependent on military aid from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,” he wrote on social media Volodymyr Zelensky.
President Ukraine he added in the post that Putin “started three years ago with an ultimatum to NATO and attempts to rewrite history, and now he cannot do without military support from Pyongyang.”
North Korean soldier captured by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk Oblast. A shot from the recording Reuters/Press Office of the President of Ukraine
“Ukraine is ready to hand over his men (soldiers – ed.) to Kim Jong Un if he manages to organize their exchange for our servicemen who are held captive in Russia,” Zelensky emphasized. He also said that “other options may be available” for Koreans who do not want it. “Those who express their desire to bring peace by spreading the truth about the war in Korean will be given the opportunity to do so,” he wrote.
Through Korean translators
The Ukrainian president announced on Saturday the capture of two North Korean soldiers fighting on the side of Russian forces in the Kursk Oblast. “Although they were injured, they survived and were brought to Kiev and are talking to SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) investigators,” he said on social media.
The SBU said it questioned the two soldiers through Korean translators in cooperation with South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) because they did not speak Ukrainian, Russian or English.
The situation in the Kursk region
According to Western sources, the Russians are supported by over 10,000 North Korean soldiers in the fighting in the Kursk Oblast.
Data released last December by South Korean intelligence showed that at least 100 North Koreans had already been killed and about a thousand injured.
Ukrainian Truth, tvn24.pl, PAP
Main photo source: Reuters/Press Office of the President of Ukraine