The capture of two North Korean soldiers on the battlefield by the Ukraine offers a rare glimpse into her role and involvement North Korea to the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian president said Volodymyr Zelensky.

The two soldiers were captured in the Kursk region, the scene of heavy fighting since Ukraine launched a cross-border incursion five months ago. Video released shows Ukrainian special forces soldiers carrying one of the wounded North Koreans into a snowy forest.

According to the GuardianZelensky said that Ukraine would give journalists access to the couple so that the world would “find out the truth about what is happening.”

The prisoners were taken to Kiev and given appropriate “medical care” for their injuries, Zelensky said.. The Ukrainian president praised the Ukrainian soldiers, saying: “This was not an easy task.”

Russian forces and North Korean military personnel had previously executed their wounded in order to “erase” any trace of Pyongyang’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, he claimed.

Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service interrogates the soldierswho were given false Russian names and military documents. The captives do not speak any foreign languages. South Korea’s NIS intelligence agency has been assisting in the investigation, the SBU said.

It is noted that these are the first North Korean soldiers who were captured and survived. They are a PR opportunity for Kiev at a precarious time for Ukraine as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.

Zelensky wants to emphasize that Ukraine is fighting an unprecedented coalition of authoritarian states. One of them is North Korea, which has supplied Moscow with short-range ballistic missiles, artillery shells and – since last November – some 10,000 elite soldiers.

Russia has also strengthened its cooperation with Iran. Tehran provides drones used in night attacks against Ukrainian cities. China does not directly contribute military aid, but is a key diplomatic ally and supplies components widely used in Russian weapons systems.

On Saturday, the SBU released videos and photos showing the two North Koreans in hospital beds, one with his hands tied and the other with his jaw tied. There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media: “We need maximum pressure against the regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”

The soldiers reportedly told the SBU that they were experienced fighters. One said he had been sent to Russia to train, not to fight. One had no identification documents, while the other was in possession of a Russian military ID said to have been “issued in the name of another person”, a 26-year-old from Russia’s Tuva region, which borders Mongolia.

According to the SBU he was a rifleman born in 2005 and serving in the North Korean army since 2021. The other wrote his answers because of his injured jaw, stating that he was born in 1999, noting that he had enlisted in the army in 2016 and was a sniper.

South Korea’s intelligence agency, the NIS, reported that one of the soldiers had said that North Korean forces had suffered “significant casualties during the battle”. One of the men said he had gone without food or water for up to five days before his capture.

Meanwhile, Russia said its army had advanced to within 3 kilometers of the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, in eastern Donetsk province, and captured a village south of the city. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces had repelled 46 of 56 attacks on about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk region.

On Saturday, Russia’s state news agency Ria Novosti first reported from the Ukrainian city of Kurakhove, a supply hub south of Pokrovsk. The Russian military announced last week that it had captured the city, the scene of heavy fighting. Ukrainian combat units recently withdrew from their last stronghold in Kurakhove, a thermal power station.

Kiev ‘is ready’ to exchange captured North Korean soldiers for Ukrainians

Zelensky also said tonight that Kiev is ready to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to their leader, Kim Jong Un, if he can arrange to exchange them for Ukrainians held captive in Russia.

“After the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our soldiers manage to capture others,” he said in a post on the X platform.

According to estimates by Ukrainian and Western experts, about 11,000 troops from North Korea have been deployed in the Kursk region to support Russian forces trying to repel the Ukrainian army. Russia neither confirmed nor denied their presence.

Zelensky claims that Russians and North Koreans have suffered heavy losses.

“Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can arrange their exchange with our soldiers held captive in Russia,” Zelensky wrote. He noted, however, that for those North Koreans who do not wish to return, there may be other options available, and “those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about the war in the Korean (language) will be given this opportunity.” opportunity”. The Ukrainian president did not give more specific details.

Kursk

The Ukrainian army has made gains in the Kursk border region, according to reports from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which said video footage showed Ukrainian soldiers advancing just north of the village of Pogrebki.

Soltz, Trump and Putin

On Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “not bad news” that Trump hoped to arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort, according to the incoming US president, to “finish with this war.” However, Olaf Solz stressed that Ukraine’s sovereignty should not be questioned. Kiev has rejected any deal that would force it to cede territory to Russia.

Referring to his own much-criticized phone conversation with Putin last month, Solz told broadcaster ARD: “There will come a time when real discussions will have to take place.” Germany, the second-largest donor to Ukraine’s war effort after the US, will continue to support Ukraine, he said, “but at the same time the killing has to stop at some point.” he noted that it is necessary “to find a way out of this war, without a dictated peace in which the Ukrainians will not have a say.”

Meanwhile, the incoming Security Adviser to the US president Donald TrumpMike Waltz, he stated in an interview with ABC News that he expects a phone call between Trump and the Russian president Vladimir Putin the next days – weeks.

Russian oil tanker

Early on Sunday morning, a Russian oil tanker that had drifted in the Baltic Sea north of the German island of Rigen after a blackout suffered when its power supply failed was brought safely to the port of Sasnitz by tugboats.

The tanker Eventim, which contains about 99,000 tonnes of oil, is believed to be part of a wide-ranging operation by Moscow to try to circumvent sanctions. The 274m vessel with 24 crew members has been effectively impounded by the authorities until a decision is made on how to deal with the matter.