Ukraine. Kim Jong Un's soldier in Ukrainian hands after being captured in Russia

According to Ukrainian military sources, the North Korean soldier was captured by special units of the Ukrainian army during an operation in the Kursk Oblast in the west Russia.

As AFP writes, this is the first known case of a North Korean prisoner being taken prisoner since Kiev and the West reported that Pyongyang had sent soldiers to support its Russian ally.

READ MORE: The Ukrainians showed how Kim's soldiers fight

President Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” since their involvement alongside Russia. Seoul, for its part, mentioned 1,100 “dead or injured” on Monday.

More than 10,000 North Korean soldiers were to be sent to Russia in recent weeks to support the Russian army, Western sources say. The Kremlin consistently does not respond to this information, notes the AFP agency. Also North Korea it has never confirmed or denied the presence of its troops on the front of the war with Ukraine.

On December 17, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army, Oleksandr Syrski, announced that the Russian army was conducting intensive offensive operations in the Kursk region, actively using North Korean units that had already suffered heavy losses.

However, after many months, Russia is still unable to regain its lands in the Kursk Oblast, where they were attacked by the Ukrainians, who thus created a buffer zone for the part of the Kharkov Oblast exposed to Russian attacks.

Ukrainian intelligence believes that North Korea's military support for Russia threatens not only Ukraine, but also South Korea and Japan. According to the intelligence service, although some North Korean soldiers will die in Ukraine, others will return with combat experience and able to train subsequent units in modern combat techniques. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff shared this opinion, pointing out that such actions could increase North Korea's military threat to the region.