Ukrainian investigators, working with South Korean intelligence, brought the wounded soldier to Kiev for questioning.

Ukraine said it captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region and brought them to Kiev, where investigators are questioning them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the two prisoners of war were “communicating” with the country’s domestic intelligence agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

“Russian troops and other North Korean military personnel routinely execute the wounded to eliminate any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war,” Zelensky wrote on X on Saturday.

The Ukrainian SBU said in a statement that one of the captured soldiers had no documents at all, while the other had a Russian military ID card bearing the name of a Russian from Russia, which borders Mongolia. Men from the region Tuva.

“The prisoners do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian, so communication with them is conducted through Korean translators with the cooperation of South Korean intelligence services,” the statement said.

One of the soldiers claimed he was told to go to Russia for training rather than fight against Ukraine, the SBU reported.

The agency said the two were provided with medical care in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Ukraine has provided no evidence that the captured soldiers are from North Korea.

Kiev has repeatedly said North Korean troops are fighting in the Kursk region and launched an invasion in August claiming control of hundreds of square kilometers of territory.

However, this is the first time the country’s intelligence services have said they have had the opportunity to question North Korean soldiers. While Ukraine previously claimed to have captured North Korean soldiers during the fighting, it said they were seriously injured and died soon after.

Last month, a senior Ukrainian military official claimed that about 200 North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk had been killed or wounded in the fighting.

Weeks ago, Ukraine announced that Pyongyang had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it fight its much smaller neighbor in its nearly three-year war.

The White House and Pentagon confirmed last month that North Korean troops are operating primarily in infantry positions on the front lines.