Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine ‘captures two North Korean soldiers in Russia’

Pair being interrogated in Kyiv, with intelligence agency SBU saying one had fake Russian military ID; Russia claims control of village near Pokrovsk

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Ukraine said it was interrogating two North Korean soldiers after capturing the pair in Russia’s Kursk region – the first time it has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last year. The president, Volodymyr Zelensyy, said on X on Saturday the soldiers were captured by Ukraine’s special forces and were being interrogated by the SBU domestic intelligence agency in Kyiv. The SBU released a video showing the two men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw. It said their questioning was being done in Korean with the help of South Korea’s NIS intelligence agency. Neither Russia nor North Korea immediately reacted to the announcement.

The SBU said the two captured North Korean men had told interrogators they were experienced army soldiers, and one said he was sent to Russia for training, not to fight. It said one PoW carried a Russian military ID card “issued in the name of another person” while the other had no documents. The SBU showed an ID issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia, 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 his injured jaw, said he was born in 1999, had joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper, the SBU said.

Zelensyy said it was difficult to capture North Koreans alive because “Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded” to cover up “evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war”. He said he would provide media access to the prisoners of war because “the world needs to know what is happening”. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, wrote online: “We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang.”

Russia said its army had gained control of a village near the eastern Ukrainian logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key target in its advance through the Donetsk region. Ukraine’s military made no mention of the village of Shevchenko in its latest account of frontline activity, but said Russia had launched more than 50 attacks against its forces’ positions near Pokrovsk in the past 24 hours. The Russian military report said its troops launched strikes with aircraft, drones and missiles on Ukrainian military airfields and energy infrastructure that service its army. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces repelled 46 of 56 Russian attacks around about a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector. Ten clashes were continuing. The governor of the part of Donetsk region held by Ukrainian forces, Vadym Filashkin, said one resident was killed and four injured when a village north of Pokrovsk came under Russian shelling.

Russia launched 74 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said early on Saturday, adding it had downed 47 of them, while 27 others disappeared from radar without reaching their targets. The air force said buildings and vehicles in seven different regions were damaged by falling debris from downed drones, but there were no casualties.

Ukraine launched drone attacks across several regions of Russia, striking two houses in the Tambov region and injuring several people, Russia said on Saturday. Ukraine denies attacking civilian targets in Russia. The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on Telegram that people were treated for injures resulting from shattered windows as drones hit two houses in the town of Kotovsk, 480km (300 miles) south-east of Moscow. The Russian defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 85 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country, including 31 drones over the Black Sea, 16 each in the Voronezh and Krasnodar regions and 14 over the Azov Sea.

Vladimir Putin awarded Russia’s highest honour for bravery on Saturday to Cpl Andrei Grigoryev after a widely posted video showed him killing a Ukrainian opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Ukrainian media identified the soldier killed as Dmytro Maslovsky from the southern Odesa region.

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