South Korea’s spy agency said Friday that a North Korean soldier sent to fight alongside Russian troops in the war was captured by Ukrainian forces.
Around 12,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, according to U.S. and South Korean officials. Most of these troops have been involved in a counteroffensive in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise border incursion in August and continue to control some Russian territory.
“Through real-time information sharing with an allied country’s intelligence agency, it has been confirmed that one injured North Korean soldier has been captured,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a statement.
The Ukrainian army captured the soldier, a South Korean intelligence source told AFP, adding that the location where he was taken was not known.
Friday’s announcement came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been “killed or wounded” or wounded since being sent into combat.
South Korea’s intelligence service had previously put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 1,000, saying the high casualty rate could be down to an unfamiliar battlefield environment and their lack of capability to counter drone attacks.
Pyongyang’s soldiers were also being “utilized as expendable frontline assault units,” South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun said last week.
