A thousand North Korean troops who have been fighting in the Kursk region of Russia have been killed in Vladimir Putin ’s war with Ukraine, officials have said. Western officials have told the BBC that 36 per cent of North Korean forces fighting in Russia had been killed, injured or captured by mid-January.

KYIV - Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Jan 11, the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last autumn.

"I didn't even know who we were fighting against," the captured soldier from Pyongyang told Ukraine's Security Service.

Ukraine wanted to show that North Korean troops are fighting alongside Russian troops. It took a high-stakes mission to prove it.

Soldiers of the 95th Separate Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine told the details of how they captured a North Korean soldier in the Kursk region. The North Korean soldier was wounded and tried to commit suicide,

Videos of captured North Korean troops posted online by Ukrainian President Zelensky show them admitting that they thought they were being sent on an exercise.

Reports suggest that North Korean soldiers are ordered to avoid capture at all costs, even resorting to suicide rather than falling into enemy hands. Ukrainian military sources in

One of the two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine this month has claimed that he arrived in Russia without knowing whom he would be fighting, according to another video of his interrogation released by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.