Zelenskiy makes shocking claim about North Korean troops in Russia
- 18 December, 15:13
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made a shocking claim about Russia’s efforts to hide its war casualties among North Korean soldiers. According to Zelenskiy, Kremlin burns faces of the killed North Korean mercenaries fighting alongside Russians to hide losses.
“While they [North Koreans] were being trained, they were forbidden even to show their faces. Any video evidence of their presence was erased by Russian forces. And now, after battles with our troops, the Russians are even trying to... literally burn the faces of the killed North Korean soldiers,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram app on Wednesday. “Even after years of war, when it seems that Russian cynicism can’t get any worse, we still witness something even more horrifying,” he went on saying
Zelenskiy said such treatment of North Koreans’ corpses illustrates “the contempt that now reigns in Russia - contempt for all things human.”
His remarks follow videos circulated in Ukrainian Telegram channels, showing what appears to be the burning of faces of soldiers. It’s not clear whether these are North Korean soldiers. According to Ukrainian and Western reports, over a hundred North Korean troops have been killed or injured during the fighting in Russia’s Kursk region in the past few days. One of the videos published in Ukrainian social media channels, shows a large number of North Korean males being treated in a hospital in Kursk.
“There is no reason for Koreans to fight and die for Putin. Even after death, they are met only with mockery from Russia. This madness must be stopped – stopped with a reliable and lasting peace and with Russia being held accountable for this cynical war,” Zelenskiy said, while commenting on high casualties among Pyongyang soldiers.
Meanwhile, over a hundred injured North Koreans have been brought for a treatment to Moscow, Ukraine’s SBU Security Service reported on Telegram on Wednesday, sharing what appears to be intercepted phone conversation between hospital staff in an unidentified hospital in Moscow. Russia has deploying around 12,000 North Korean soldiers in is Kursk region since Ukraine’s incursion in August.
