Zelenskiy Says ‘Several’ Wounded North Korean Troops Have Died After Capture

KYIV -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “several” North Korean soldiers – badly wounded in fighting alongside Russian forces – have died after being captured by Ukrainian troops on the battlefield and he accused Moscow of having little regard for their survival.

Zelenskiy, echoing earlier remarks by U.S. officials, said soldiers sent to Russia by Pyongyang are suffering major losses in fighting in Russia's Kursk region.

The Ukrainian leader accused Moscow and North Korean “enforcers” of leaving the soldiers unprotected in battle and even executing fighters to prevent them from being captured alive.

He did not provide evidence to back up the claims and they could not independently be verified.

The North Korean military has suffered “many losses. A great deal. And we can see that the Russian military and the North Korean enforcers have no interest in the survival of these Koreans at all,” he said in a video address on December 27.

“Everything is arranged in a way that makes it impossible for us to capture the Koreans as prisoners – their own people are executing them. There are such cases. And the Russians send them into assaults with minimal protection.”

He said Ukrainian soldiers had managed to take some prisoners. "But they were very seriously wounded and could not be saved.”

The remarks came after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said that a North Korean fighter had died of wounds suffered before his capture by Ukrainian special operations troops in the Kursk region.

"We have confirmed through an allied intelligence agency that a North Korean soldier who was captured on the 26th died a little while ago due to serious injuries," the news release said.

On December 26, the Ukrainian news outlet Militarnyi said a soldier believed to be North Korean had been captured by Ukrainian Special Operations Forces in the Kursk region.

A photo of a captured soldier, who is believed to have been injured, also was previously shared on Telegram. The photo has not been independently verified.

Details about the soldier's condition and status are not known.

Last month Pyongyang ratified a "comprehensive strategic partnership" agreement with Russia, cementing a deal that paved the way for its soldiers to fight on Russian soil against Ukraine.

Western sources estimate that 12,000 North Korean troops are in the Kursk region, parts of which are occupied by Ukrainian forces amid ongoing pitched battles.

U.S. Response

White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on December 27 that North Korean forces are suffering heavy casualties on the front lines, adding that some 1,000 of their troops have been killed or wounded in the Kursk region over the past week.

"It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses," Kirby said.

Kirby said also U.S. President Joe Biden would likely approve another package of military aid for Kyiv in the coming days as he bids to bolster Ukraine’s forces before leaving office on January 20.

U.S. officials later told reporters that a new package of military assistance worth $1.25 billion is scheduled to be announced on December 30.

North Korean Losses

Zelenskiy on December 23 said more than 3,000 troops, or about a quarter of the North Korean special forces sent to Russia, had been killed or injured, though he couched his statement by saying the data was preliminary.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported on a lower figure, saying on December 19 that about 1,100 North Korean special forces have been killed or injured in Russia since entering the fray against Ukraine.

On December 15, Skhemy (Schemes), an investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, received photos from Ukrainian military sources purportedly showing the bodies of dead soldiers in Kursk, including what was said to be North Korean fighters.

RFE/RL has not been able to independently verify the claims. Russia has not commented on the report.

North Korean military support is coming at a critical time in the war. Russia is seeking to overpower an undermanned and under-resourced Ukrainian infantry and gain territory before its own manpower and resources become constrained.

Russia has lost more than 600,000 soldiers in the nearly three-year war, the Pentagon said in early October. It has burned through so much war material that it is struggling to replace its artillery and missile needs amid sweeping Western sanctions.

Now nearly two-thirds of the mortars and shells Russia launches at Ukraine come from North Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian Army officer. And every third ballistic missile was made in North Korea, Ukrainian officials said.