By Kontur and AFP | 2025-01-13

SEOUL/KYIV -- About 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and 2,700 wounded while fighting in Russia's war against Ukraine, a South Korean lawmaker said Monday (January 13), citing information from Seoul's spy agency.

Seoul has previously claimed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent more than 10,000 soldiers as "cannon fodder" to help Moscow fight Kyiv, in return for Russian technical assistance for Pyongyang's heavily sanctioned weapon and satellite programs.

Ukraine, meanwhile, said it was questioning two captured North Korean soldiers who had been wounded fighting alongside Russian troops.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on January 12 said Kyiv was prepared to offer the North Korean soldiers to Pyongyang in exchange for the return of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) held in Russia.

The Kremlin on Monday declined to comment after Kyiv published videos of the two captured soldiers being interrogated in Korean.

"We cannot comment in any way; we do not know what is true there," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Prepared to die

Seoul's National Intelligence Service (NIS) told AFP it had "confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on January 9 in the Kursk battlefield in Russia."

"The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia has reportedly expanded to include the Kursk region, with estimates suggesting that casualties among North Korean forces have surpassed 3,000," lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters Monday after a briefing from the NIS.

This includes "approximately 300 deaths and 2,700 injuries," Lee said.

The soldiers, reportedly from North Korea's elite Storm Corps, have been ordered to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, he said.

"Notably, memos found on deceased soldiers indicate that the North Korean authorities pressured them to commit suicide or self-detonate before capture," he said.

He added that some of the soldiers had been granted "amnesty" or wanted to join North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, hoping to improve their lot by fighting.

One North Korean soldier who was about to be captured shouted "General Kim Jong Un" and attempted to detonate a grenade, Lee said, adding that he was shot and killed.

The NIS analysis also revealed that the North Korean soldiers have "a lack of understanding of modern warfare," and are being used by Russia in a manner leading to "the high number of casualties," the lawmaker said.

Tricked into deployment

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Saturday released a video showing the two captured men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw.

A doctor at the detention center said the first man also had a broken leg.

In the video, one man can be heard speaking to a Ukrainian official through an interpreter, saying that he did not know he was going to fight in a war with Ukraine and that his commanders "told him it was just training."

In translated comments, one of the men says he wants to return to North Korea.

The other says he will do what he is told but, if given the chance, wants to live in Ukraine.

The SBU said the men had told interrogators they were experienced army soldiers, and one said he was sent to Russia for training, not fighting.

The NIS similarly said one of the captured soldiers revealed during his interrogation that he received military training from Russian forces after arriving there in November.

"He initially believed he was being sent for training, realizing upon arrival in Russia that he had been deployed," the NIS said.

The soldier said North Korean forces had experienced "significant losses during battle."

One of the men "went without food or water for four to five days before being captured," according to Seoul's intelligence agency.

The NIS said it would continue to work with the SBU to share information on North Korean fighters in Ukraine.

'Indisputable evidence'

The SBU said the men's capture provided "indisputable evidence of the DPRK's participation in Russia's war against our country," using an acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It said one POW carried a Russian military ID card "issued in the name of another person" while the other had no documents.

It showed an ID issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia's Tuva region bordering Mongolia.

Ukraine has said Russia is hiding North Korean fighters by giving them fake IDs from regions such as Tuva with large ethnic minority communities.

"The Russians are giving these Koreans their documents, but they are not fooling anyone," Zelenskyy said.

One prisoner said he had received the Tuvan ID in Russia in autumn 2024 when some North Korean combat units had "one-week interoperability training" with Russian units, the SBU said.

The man said he believed he was "going for training, not to fight a war against Ukraine," adding that he was a rifleman born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021.

The other man, who wrote his answers because of an injured jaw, said he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper, according to the SBU.

It said the men were captured separately by special forces and paratroopers.

They are being given medical care and "held in appropriate conditions that meet the requirements of international law," the SBU added.

Ukraine, the United States and South Korea have accused nuclear-armed North Korea of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help bolster Russian forces.

Russia and North Korea have boosted their military ties since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, though neither has confirmed that Pyongyang's forces are fighting for Moscow.