Nearly 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and 2,700 others wounded in Russia’s war in Ukraine, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers in a closed briefing on Monday.
The National Intelligence Service said he had taken part in the interrogation of several North Korean soldiers who were captured by Ukrainian forces.
The briefing came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the capture of two North Korean soldiers during fighting in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive in August.
Zelensky said late Sunday that he would repatriate captured North Koreans to their country if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un organizes an exchange of Ukrainian soldiers held in Russia.
The Ukrainian leader said it was “only a matter of time” before Ukraine captures more North Korean troops, and that Russia’s military is “dependent on military assistance from North Korea.”
drone attacks
Ukraine’s military said on Monday it had destroyed 78 of the 110 drones that Russian forces launched in overnight strikes targeting areas across the country.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the interceptions occurred in the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnitsky, Kiev, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Zaporizhia and Zhytomyr regions.
Mykolaiv Governor Vitaly Kim said on Telegram that falling fragments of the drone damaged several houses, but no one was hurt. Kim said on Monday that one person was injured in Russian shelling in his area.
In Sumy, officials said Russian strikes caused a fire in a residential building and injured one person.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Monday it destroyed six Ukrainian drones in the Voronezh region, as well as one drone over Belgorod and another over Bryansk.
The ministry also said on Monday that a Ukrainian drone strike on Saturday targeted the TurkStream gas pipeline, which is used to send Russian gas to Turkey and Europe.
The ministry said Russian air defenses shot down all the drones involved in the attack and there were no casualties.
Some information for this story was provided by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters