“The president noted that he “instructed the SBU to provide journalists with access to these prisoners””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“These are two soldiers who, although they were wounded, survived, were sent to Kyiv, and are communicating with SBU investigators,” Zelenskyi said.
According to him, this task was “difficult”: “usually the Russians and other military personnel from North Korea finish off their wounded and do everything to ensure that there is no evidence of the participation of another country – North Korea – in the war against Ukraine.”
“I am grateful to our soldiers of tactical group No. 84 of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and our paratroopers who captured these two people. As with all prisoners, these two soldiers from North Korea are provided with the necessary medical assistance,” Zelensky emphasized.
He noted that he “instructed the SBU to provide journalists with access to these prisoners.”
“The world needs to know what’s going on,” the president said.
The Russian authorities have not yet officially commented on this information.
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine previously reported that the first military units from the DPRK arrived in the combat zone of the Russian-Ukrainian war on October 23, “their appearance was recorded in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.” Later, the GUR announced about 12,000 North Korean troops in Russia.
Ukrainian intelligence claims that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already engaged North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has announced the loss of North Korean forces.
NATO strongly condemned the expansion of military cooperation between Russia and the DPRK. The alliance stressed that sending North Korean troops is a dangerous escalation and violates UN Security Council resolutions. This increase in support for Moscow in its aggressive war against Ukraine causes serious concern of the international community, the statement emphasizes.
During his visit to Kyiv on November 9, the head of the EU foreign policy department, Josep Borrell, also noted that the presence of North Korean troops at the front is an additional threat, and emphasized the need for diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.
As the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said on January 1, the total losses of the Russian army in Kurshchyna amounted to more than 38,000 personnel and more than a thousand pieces of equipment.