Two North Korean soldiers are in custody in Kyiv, bandaged up and under interrogation, after being wounded on the battlefield in Kursk, Russia, over the weekend.
For the Ukrainian military, their capture represents an opportunity to gain insight into the thousands of North Korean soldiers sent by Pyongyang to bolster Russian forces in their fight against Ukraine.
Meanwhile, for South Korea, the first prisoners of war could represent an intelligence coup, in a time when fewer people are defecting from the north to the south.
“I can imagine all the people in the South Korean embassy in Kyiv are celebrating,” said Fyodor Tertitskiy, a lecturer at Korea University in Seoul and an author of a book on North Korea’s military structure.
“These people are from the army and likely engaged in very shadowy … special projects.”
Before this capture, Ukraine’s military had been releasing field notes and passports that it said belonged to North Korean troops and gave a glimpse of …