Zelenskyy offers prisoner exchange if Kim Jong Un helps with the return of Ukrainian prisoners from Russia.
Ukrainian soldiers describe the North Korean soldiers as being very far from inexperienced cannon fodder. | Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images
January 13, 2025 1:11 pm CET
KYIV — Ukraine’s Security Service is continuing to interrogate two North Korean soldiers captured as prisoners of war in the Kursk region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Kursk describe North Koreans — previously dubbed “cannon fodder” that will “defect as soon as they get to fight” — as highly skilled, fearless and motivated infantry.
“They have been blowing themselves up when they see capture is in sight,” Lieutenant Colonel Yaroslav Chepurnyi, a spokesman of the Ukrainian army, told POLITICO on Monday.
The two North Korean fighters captured by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region on Saturday were taken to Kyiv for medical treatment. The soldiers speak neither English nor Russian, so Ukrainian special services are working with the South Korean spy agency to communicate with them.
"One of them has expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine. The second one wants to return to Korea," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement on Sunday.
"Suppose Kim Jong Un remembers these citizens of his and is capable of organizing an exchange for our warriors being held in Russia,” he added. "In that case, we are ready to transfer such soldiers. Undoubtedly, there will be more POWs from North Korea."
Ukraine’s elite forces continue to fight against both Russian and North Korean regular troops to keep a part of the Kursk region that Kyiv captured in a surprise offensive in August. The Ukrainian army launched another counteroffensive there on Jan. 5.
Some 12,000 North Korean troops reportedly joined the fight against Ukraine on the Kremlin’s side at the end of October to help push the Ukrainians out of Russia. Since then, Kyiv has reportedly lost about half of the 1,250 square kilometers it captured.
Around 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and 2,700 wounded so far in the fight against Ukraine, the South Korean government in Seoul said on Monday. The numbers are difficult to verify, as neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have directly confirmed North Korean troops' participation in the war.
Ukrainian soldiers describe the North Korean soldiers as being very far from inexperienced cannon fodder.
“They are young, motivated, physically fit, brave, and good at using small arms. They are also disciplined. They have everything you need for a good infantryman,” Chepurnyi said.
Yuriy Bondar, a Ukrainian soldier with the 80th separate airborne assault brigade, said North Korean soldiers have extremely good physical training and have stable morale.
“The enemy does not surrender. They eliminate themselves according to the same scheme, a grenade near the head, and go. Those who remain on the battlefield are doused with flammable liquid and burned,” Bondar said in a post on Facebook on Sunday.
Bondar also confirmed that the North Koreans possess an extremely high level of mastery of small arms, successfully shooting down “a surprising number” of Ukrainian drones.
“They demonstrate psychological resilience. Imagine, one runs and attracts attention and the other from an ambush shoots down a drone with aimed fire,” Bondar said, claiming that underestimation of the enemy will always lead to a defeat.
“As one commander said, compared to the soldiers of the DPRK, Wagner mercenaries circa 2022 are just children. And I believe him,” Bondar said.