- Ukrainian paratroopers said a North Korean soldier they captured crashed into a pole to knock himself out.
- They said they found him alone on the battlefield with a grenade, a knife and some food.
- Their prisoner closely resembles one of the two North Koreans Ukraine said it had captured.
Ukrainian paratroopers in Kursk said they captured a North Korean soldier who tried so hard to evade capture that he deliberately crashed into a concrete pillar to knock himself out.
Three members of Polissia’s 95th Special Air Assault Brigade spoke of the encounter in a video released Tuesday, describing how one of their drones found a lone North Korean on the battlefield after an attack ended.
The clip was published by the brigade’s press service on its YouTube, Facebook and Telegram accounts.
The paratroopers said they covered the North Korean with instructions from the drone operators and found that he did not respond to commands in Ukrainian, Russian or English.
“We showed him what to do with gestures,” said one of the paratroopers.
The soldier was carrying a grenade, a knife and a salami, the paratroopers said.
They said the North Korean was also visibly injured, with his jaw bandaged and one of his hands appearing injured.
A paratrooper said the wounded soldier seemed calm at first but became nervous when he saw a vehicle coming to pick him up.
“When we brought him to the side of the road, suddenly he hit a concrete pillar head on at full speed. It hit him very hard and he probably lost his mind,” he said.
But the paratrooper also suspects it may have been a ploy by the North Korean soldier, because the latter fell backwards, not forwards, as might be expected when a person charging faints.
“I think he was fooling around, trying to get us closer so he could grab a gun and attack us,” he said.
The paratroopers said they eventually got the North Korean into a vehicle and drove him away from the front lines, after which he received food and watched romantic movies on demand.
A senior paratrooper said in the video that the North Koreans’ tactics appeared to mimic Russia’s Soviet-era fighting, with frontal assaults where “they try to just crush with sheer numbers.”
But he added that while Russian forces in Kursk tend to attack in groups of two or three, the North Koreans will launch attacks in groups of at least six.
The paratroopers said Pyongyang’s forces would fight to the end if cornered, adding that their brigade reported cases where wounded North Koreans blew themselves up to avoid capture.
“They are unable to surrender,” said one of the paratroopers.
The man they captured appears to be one of two North Korean soldiers Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced had been captured on the battlefield in early January.
One of the North Korean soldiers presented by Zelenskyy closely resembles the man seen in the video posted by the paratroopers. Social media of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Fletushka/Anadolu via Getty Images
One was captured by Ukrainian special forces, while the other was found by the Polissia brigade.
The paratroopers posted a clip of their prisoner on Jan. 11, which they referenced when recounting the events of his capture in their Tuesday video.
Another North Korean soldier, separated from the pair shown by Zelenskyy, was captured in December, but South Korea’s intelligence service said he died of his wounds shortly afterwards.
Western and South Korean intelligence estimates that 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia, where they have been deployed to fight a Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.
Their presence in the war is a significant sign of Pyongyang and Moscow strengthening an economic and military partnership fueled by Russia’s isolation since the start of the war.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to have received Russian food, financial aid and expertise in space and weapons technologies in exchange for his troops and weapons.
Meanwhile, the West fears that North Korean troops are gaining valuable combat experience from fighting in Russia.
Documents from a captured North Korean soldier obtained by The Washington Post discuss instructions about the six-man frontal assaults the paratroopers spoke of.
“In modern warfare, where reconnaissance and drone strikes are conducted in real time, failure to break down combat teams into smaller units of two to three members can lead to significant casualties from enemy drones and artillery,” it said. a document, according to The Post.
