Two North Korean soldiers captured alive by Ukraine for the first time, Zelensky says

Ukrainian forces captured two North Korean soldiers fighting with Russia's army, alive but wounded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.

It marks the first time Ukraine said it took North Korean soldiers prisoner since they arrived in Russia to fight in the war in October, according to Ukraine and the U.S.

In a post to X, Zelensky said the soldiers were captured in Kursk, a Russian region on the border that Ukraine is trying to hold after it staged an incursion into the area last summer. They were transported to Kyiv, where they are communicating with Ukrainian officials, he said.

"This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine," Zelensky said.

North Korean forces have already suffered "heavy casualties" in the region, with more than 1,000 killed or wounded within a week, White House National Security Advisor John Kirby said at a news conference late last month. Some soldiers reportedly took their own lives to avoid surrendering to Ukraine, he said.

The North Korean troops have been deployed to the frontlines in Kursk, mostly as light infantry soldiers and mortar teams, a senior U.S. military official told reporters in December. Many have never been in combat before, the official said.

Trump says he will meet with Putin

Zelensky's announcement comes as President Joe Biden prepares to hand off the White House on Jan. 20 to President-elect Donald Trump, who said this week that he is arranging a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"He wants to meet, and we are setting it up,” Trump said on Thursday at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. "We have to get that war over with," he added, calling it a "bloody mess."

The Kremlin said the next day that it was open to the meeting, although nothing was yet on the books.

Trump's well-documented closeness with Putin and his vow that he could quickly end the war have raised concern from Ukraine and its supporters about whether the former and future president will curtail or end U.S. aid to Ukraine. Proposals articulated by incoming Vice President J.D. Vance include freezing Ukraine's borders where they are now and indefinitely suspending Ukraine from joining NATO.

Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, the U.S. has sent more than $30 billion in military assistance and weapons. The lame duck Biden administration on Thursday announced another $500 million aid package, including air defense missiles, air-to-ground munitions and support equipment for F-16 fighter jets.

Meanwhile, as Biden prepares to leave office, his administration on Friday imposed its hardest sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies and more than 180 of its oil tankers. Many of the tankers ship oil to India and China, which have made up a growing share of Russia's oil exports after it was fenced out of European markets after the invasion.

The measures are "the most significant sanctions yet against the Russian energy sector, the largest source of revenue for the Kremlin's war machine," a senior official told reporters.

In October, South Korea reported that more than a thousand North Korean troops had gone to training bases in eastern Russia. Working with Ukraine, the country's intelligence service used facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to identify North Korean military officers in the Donetsk region.

Putin has steadily tightened his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with the two leaders signing a defense pact when the Russian leader paid a visit to North Korea in June.

Contributing: Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine captures first North Korean soldiers alive, Zelensky says