Inside the operations that took captive 2 North Korean soldiers fighting Ukraine

When Ukrainian soldiers captured two North Korean prisoners of war last month, it provided the first undeniable proof of Pyongyang’s direct involvement in the war against Ukraine.It also shed some light on the mindset and training of the conscripted North Korean soldiers sent to fight Russia’s war a continent away from their home.Highly disciplined, ready to die but also very young and with little battlefield experience they elicited curiosity and even some pity from the Ukrainian soldiers who captured them during two separate missions on Jan.9.Their capture confirmed what Ukraine, South Korea and the US had been saying for months: Thousands of North Korean troops were fighting alongside Kremlin forces in the battle for Russia’s Kursk border region — something Moscow had never confirmed.Capturing a North Korean prisoner had long been an objective for the Ukrainian special forces, even as the North Koreans seemed willing to kill themselves or a wounded comrade to elude capture.

Only one had been taken captive, in December, but he died of his wounds.Then intelligence came about three soldiers stranded in the so-called gray zone — a dangerous no-man’s-land on the front line controlled by neither side.The soldiers were identified as North Koreans because they, not Russians, were operating in that sector of Kursk.“They were likely abandoned,” said a Ukrainian soldier who participated in the mission and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because special forces members are not authorized to reveal their names.The team advanced through a barren winter forest toward the coordinates where a drone had spotted the three lost soldiers.“Koreans are incredibly tough,” the soldier said.

“We’ve seen them carrying enormous loads: one soldier as small as a child, with a heavy backpack and a machine gun, yet sprinting.”As they closed in, the Ukrainians came under enemy fire, and two of the North Koreans were killed in the f...