Members of the Korean Vietnam War Veterans Association hold a rally in downtown Seoul in October to protest North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia. File photo by Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA-EFE
Dec. 27 (UPI) — The first North Korean soldier taken prisoner of war by Ukrainian forces while fighting for Russia has died of his injuries, South Korean intelligence said Friday.
Confirming reports in Ukrainian media that a wounded North Korean soldier had been captured, the National Intelligence Service said it had had obtained the confirmation “through real-time information sharing with an allied country’s intelligence agency.”
Shortly afterward, the agency said the soldier, who it said was taken prisoner in Ukraine and not in Russia’s Kursk region, part of which is occupied by Ukrainian forces, had died.
Ukraine’s Militarnyi, which initially reported the soldier was captured by Ukrainian special forces fighting in Kursk, said it would mark the first time a North Korean had fallen into enemy hands, if confirmed.
Yang Uk, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, told the BBC that the incident involving the captured soldier was the first of many, but that Ukrainian forces would want to take the North Koreans alive and keep them that way, where possible.
“For Ukrainians, it’s more beneficial to capture these North Korean troops and try to exchange them with Russians for Ukrainian prisoners of war.”
He said imagery from the frontlines appeared to support rumors that Russian command would deploy “large numbers” of North Korean soldiers, but warned it could prove tricky to prove they were from North Korea amid reports they have been issued with fake military identification.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian forces of going to extreme lengths to conceal the ethnicity of North Koreans fighting and dying alongside them.
“They tried to hide the presence of North Korean soldiers. It was prohibited to show their faces during training. The Russians attempted to erase any video evidence of their presence. And now, after first combats with our warriors, Russians are trying to literally burn the faces of North Korean soldiers killed in battle,” he alleged in a post on X that purports to show North Korean troops being “defaced.”
“This is a demonstration of disrespect, which is currently prevalent in Russia, a disrespect to everything human. There is not a single reason for North Koreans to fight and die for Putin. And even after they do, Russia has only humiliation for them,” Zelensky wrote.
There has been no official word from either Ukraine authorities or North Korea, which has studiously avoided any mention of more than 11,000 troops South Korean and U.S. officials say it has sent to assist Russian forces under a mutual defense pact between Moscow and Pyongyang.
North Korean units were taking heavy casualties in Kursk, according to Ukraine military intelligence while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put the number killed or wounded at more than 3,000.
The estimate from South Korean military brass is much lower — 1,100, of which only 100 were confirmed kills.