South Korea's spy agency said Friday it had confirmed that a North Korean soldier sent to back Russia's war against Ukraine had been captured by Ukrainian forces.
Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to reinforce Russia's military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock border incursion in August.
"Through real-time information sharing with an allied country's intelligence agency, it has been confirmed that one injured North Korean soldier has been captured," South Korea's National Intelligence Service said in a statement. The soldier was captured by the Ukrainian army, a South Korean intelligence source told AFP, adding that the location where he was seized was not known.
Friday's confirmation came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been "killed or wounded" so far as they joined Russian troops in combat. South Korea's intelligence service had previously put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 1,000, saying the high casualty rate could be down to an unfamiliar battlefield environment and their lack of capability to counter drone attacks.
Pyongyang's soldiers were also being "utilised as expendable frontline assault units", lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun said, speaking last week after a briefing by South Korea's spy agency.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Monday that Pyongyang is reportedly "preparing for the rotation or additional deployment of soldiers" and supplying "240mm rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery" to the Russian army.
Update 20241227
A North Korean soldier who was captured while fighting in Russia's war against Ukraine has died of his wounds, South Korea's spy agency said on Friday.