KYIV – Ukraine’s forces have captured two North Korean troopers combating alongside Russian troops in Russia’s Kursk border area, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Saturday.
He made the feedback days after Ukraine began pressing new attacks in Kursk to retain floor captured in a lightning incursion in August that resulted within the first occupation of Russian territory since World Warfare II.
Moscow’s counterattack has left Ukrainian forces outstretched and demoralized, killing and wounding 1000’s and retaking greater than 40% of the 984 sq. kilometers (380 sq. miles) of Kursk Ukraine had seized.
“Our troopers have captured North Korean troopers in Kursk. These are two troopers who, though wounded, survived, have been taken to Kyiv, and are speaking” with Ukrainian safety companies, Zelenskyy stated in a put up on the Telegram messaging app.
He shared pictures of two males resting on cots in a room with bars over the home windows. Each wore bandages, one round his jaw and the opposite round each arms and wrists.
Zelenskyy stated capturing the troopers alive was “not simple.” He asserted that Russian and North Korean forces combating in Kursk have tried to hide the presence of North Korean troopers, together with by killing wounded comrades on the battlefield to keep away from their seize and interrogation by Kyiv.
A senior Ukrainian military official said last month {that a} couple hundred North Korean troops combating alongside Russian forces in Kursk have been killed or wounded in battle.
The official was offering the primary vital estimate of North Korean casualties, which got here a number of weeks after Ukraine introduced that Pyongyang had despatched 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to assist it in its virtually 3-year conflict in opposition to its a lot smaller neighbor.
The White House and Pentagon final month confirmed that the North Korean forces have been battling on the entrance strains in largely infantry positions. They’ve been combating with Russian items and, in some instances, independently round Kursk.
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