North Korean soldier captured in Ukraine dies: reports

An injured North Korean soldier captured by Ukrainian forces has died, Yonhap Information Company has reported, citing a press release from South Korea’s spy company.

The soldier is believed to be the primary North Korean prisoner of battle captured since Pyongyang deployed forces to help Russia’s battle in Ukraine.

Individually, the White Home stated North Korean forces have been experiencing mass casualties, and alleged that 1,000 of their troops had been killed or wounded over the previous week within the Kursk area of Russia.

North Korea has despatched greater than 10,000 troopers to assist Russia, in accordance with Kyiv and Seoul – although Moscow and Pyongyang have neither confirmed nor denied their presence.

White Home spokesperson John Kirby instructed that Russian and North Korean army leaders have been treating the troops as “expendable”.

They have been being ordered to hold out “hopeless assaults towards Ukrainian defences” and have been being utilized in “massed dismounted assaults”, he stated.

South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service stated it had confirmed by way of an “allied intelligence company” that the captured North Korean soldier had died from “critical accidents”, Yonhap reported.

The spy company earlier confirmed that Ukrainian forces had captured the soldier after a photograph purporting to point out the person had been circulating on Telegram.

“That is the primary in a string of captures and killings,” Yang Uk, a analysis fellow on the Asan Institute for Coverage Research, instructed the BBC. “For Ukrainians, it is extra helpful to seize these North Korean troops and attempt to trade them with Russians for Ukrainian prisoners of battle.”

Latest pictures rising from the Russia-Ukraine battle confirmed speculations that “North Korean troops can be deployed in giant numbers to the assault by Russian command”, Mr Yang stated.

He additionally added, nonetheless, that “it is going to be difficult to show their North Korean nationality”.

Ukrainian forces say that North Korean troopers have been issued with faux Russian IDs, whereas Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted footage final week which he stated confirmed Russian troops burning the faces of slain North Koreans to hide their identities.

Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence companies have stated that most of the troops deployed to Russia are a few of Pyongyang’s finest, drawn from the eleventh Corps, often known as the Storm Corps. The unit is skilled in infiltration, infrastructure sabotage and assassinations.

Greater than 3,000 North Korean troops have died or been wounded whereas preventing in Russia’s Kursk area, Zelensky stated Monday.

He added that the collaboration between Moscow and Pyongyang heightened the “danger of destabilisation” across the Korean peninsula.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The current deployment of North Korean troops to Russia is an indication of a rising alliance between the 2 pariah states.

The event, which comes as North Korea ratchets up tensions with South Korea, has sparked worries within the West. China, a long-standing ally of either side, can also be maintaining a cautious eye on the friendship.

Extra reporting by Jake Kwon