Zelensky offers exchange of North Korean soldiers

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said the two men are in Kyiv and receiving medical care.

They only speak Korean and are being questioned with the assistance of the South Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service), the intelligence service said.

Zelensky posted photos on social media on Saturday showing the men, who are injured.

He also shared a photo of a red Russian military card that gives the place of birth as Turan, in the Tuva Republic, which is close to Mongolia.

The intelligence service said that when the prisoners were captured, one of the soldiers had a Russian military ID card issued in the name of another person with registration in the Tuva Republic. The other had no documents.

The intelligence service said that during interrogation, one of the soldiers told security personnel that he had been issued the document in Russia during the autumn of 2024.

He is alleged to have stated that at that time, some of North Korea’s combat units had one-week interoperability training.

“It is noteworthy that the prisoner…emphasises that he was allegedly going for training, not to fight a war against Ukraine,” the SBU statement said.

Zelensky’s office said in a statement on Saturday that the Russians “are trying to hide the fact that these are soldiers from North Korea by giving them documents claiming they are from Tuva or other territories under Moscow’s control”.

The intelligence service reported that the soldier carrying the ID card said he was born in 2005 and had been serving North Korea as a rifleman since 2021.