South Korea’s spy agency has confirmed Ukrainian reports that an injured North Korean soldier has been captured by Ukrainian forces, in what could be the first capture of its kind since Pyongyang had sent combat forces to bolster Russian forces in the war in Ukraine.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service said in a statement on Friday: “Through real-time information sharing with an allied country’s intelligence agency, it has been confirmed that one injured North Korean soldier has been captured.”
A photo of the North Korean soldier, who looked gaunt and appeared to have been injured, circulated on the Telegram messaging app, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Details of the soldier’s condition or status are unknown.
The claim emerged after Ukraine outlet Militarnyi reported that special forces had captured the soldier in the Kursk region of Russia, where some territory has been seized and held during an incursion by Ukraine.
The outlet did not say when the incident had taken place, and there has been no confirmation from officials in Ukraine or North Korea, where the state media have not referred to the deployment of the country’s troops.
Militarnyi said that, if confirmed, the soldier would be the first North Korean combatant to have been taken by Ukrainian forces.
As many as 11,000 soldiers from North Korea have been deployed to help their Russian counterparts, months after the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed a mutual defence pact that committed each country to come to the other’s aid if attacked.
While the North could gain valuable battlefield experience, its poorly trained soldiers, fighting in unfamiliar territory, have quickly been exposed to the dangers of combat.
This week, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed that more than 3,000 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded in the Kursk region.
The deployment of North Korean soldiers marked a dramatic escalation in the war, which began almost three years ago, as the Kremlin turned to its ally to boost its forces. It was also seen as an attempt by Putin to broaden the conflict through the direct involvement in fighting of a third country.
