On January 11, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine had captured two North Korean soldiers in Kursk on Jan. 9 and brought them to Kiev where they were being questioned. No North Korean soldiers had been caught before, Zelensky explained, because “Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war.”
Zelensky posted a photo of each of the captured North Koreans, with one claiming, through interpreters, that he had been a member of the DPRK army since 2021, and the other testifying in writing (since his jaw was injured) that he had been in a sniper-reconnaissance unit since 2016. A brief video of the interrogation was released by Ukraine’s Presidential Press Service, but the faces are blurred, the location blacked out, and the authenticity of the video has not been verified.
Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, suggests the Western media should request that Kiyiv “produce these supposed North Korean prisoners for journalists to interview. If they do, then the issue is proved. If not, it will be a strong indication that these prisoners do not in fact exist.”
一萬個北韓士兵 捉得兩個 影相仲要blur左個樣 我緊係唔撚信
