The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) yesterday backed up Ukraine’s account of having captured two wounded North Korean soldiers in Russia, after Kyiv said they were being questioned.
Ukraine, the US and South Korea have accused nuclear-armed North Korea of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help bolster Russian forces.
The NIS said it has “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on Jan. 9 in the Kursk battlefield in Russia.”
Photo: Kremlin via AP
On Saturday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) released a video showing the two 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.
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.
Kyiv did not present direct evidence that the captured men were North Korean and Agence France-Presse was unable to independently verify their nationalities.
South Korea’s confirmation added weight to Kyiv’s account.
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 last year.
“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,” the NIS said.
It said it would continue to work with the SBU to share information on North Korean fighters in Ukraine.
Neither Russia nor North Korea has reacted to the intelligence accounts.
Russia and North Korea have boosted their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, although neither has confirmed that Pyongyang’s forces are fighting for Moscow.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS