Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that "several" wounded North Korean soldiers died after being captured by Ukrainian forces, as he accused Russia of throwing them into battle with "minimal protection."
"Today there were reports about several soldiers from North Korea. Our soldiers managed to take them prisoner. But they were very seriously wounded and could not be resuscitated," Zelensky said in an evening address posted on social media.
South Korea's spy agency said earlier on Friday that a North Korean soldier who was captured while fighting in Russia's war against Ukraine had died of his wounds.
Zelensky did not specify how many North Koreans had died after being captured by Ukrainian troops.
North Korea has sent thousands of soldiers to support Russia's army fighting in its western Kursk border region, where Ukraine mounted a shock incursion in August.
Zelensky has called the deployment a major escalation in the nearly three-year war.
Ukraine has said it has inflicted heavy losses on the North Korean troops—claims repeated by Zelensky on Friday.
"They have a lot of losses. A lot. And we see that the Russian military and North Korean supervisors are not interested in the survival of these Koreans at all," he said.
"Everything is being done to make it impossible for us to capture Koreans. The Russians send them on assaults so that they have minimal protection," he added.
The Ukrainian leader also pressured China, which has close military and political ties with both Moscow and Pyongyang, to put pressure on North Korea.
"If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not expand, it needs to exert a corresponding influence on Pyongyang," he said.
With AFP
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