Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared on Saturday that his military had captured two North Korean soldiers who were fighting with Russia in the Kursk Region, marking a first in the war.
Zelensky shared on social media that the capture of the soldiers was a first in the war, as they have yet to take any North Korean troops prisoner since Pyongyang began intervening with the Kremlin’s war.
“This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine,” Zelensky said on X.
The soldiers are said to be receiving medical attention but were being taken to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, to be interrogated by the Security Service of Ukraine.
Reporters are also going to be given access to the prisoners, as Zelensky said that the “world needs to know the truth about what is happening.”
The Pentagon reported late last year that North Korea had sent around 10,000 troops to train in Russia to eventually be used on the battlefield.
Russia has been hard up for troops and munitions throughout its war with Ukraine, forcing President Vladimir Putin to create new alliances, like with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
Ukraine has made strides in the war, including pushing an offensive attack into Russia’s Kursk region, where the Kremlin is doing everything possible to push them back across the border.
The White House said last December that North Korean soldiers were getting injured at a rapid pace, reporting that more than 1,000 were being killed or wounded in just one week.
Ukraine’s data has put the number higher, claiming the total number of North Korean soldiers to have died or been injured “already exceeds 3,000,” ABC News reported.
As President-elect Donald Trump looks to return to office, the world will look to his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine. However, proposed deals from his team were recently shot down by Russian officials.
“We are not happy, of course, with the proposals made by members of the Trump team to postpone Ukraine’s admission to NATO for 20 years and to station British and European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during an interview with Russian state-run media outlet TASS, referencing leaked reports of Trump’s proposals.
Instead, Lavrov said that any proposals for peace should be “reliable and legally binding agreements that would eliminate the root causes of the conflict and seal a mechanism precluding the possibility of their violation.”
At this time, a resolution to the fighting does not seem to be on the table.